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THE 

GAME OF EMPIRES 

A WARNING TO AMERICA 

BY 

EDWARD S. VAN ZILE, L.H.D. 

WITH PREFATORY NOTE BY 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 




NEW YORK 
MOFFAT, YARD & CO. 

1915 



'^ 






A^ 



COPTKIGHT, 1915, BT 

MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 
New York 

All rights reserved 



Press of 

J. J. Little & Ives Co. 

New York 



APR 29 ie!5 

©G1A401008 
U4> f 



Theodore Roosevelt 

Thirty East Forty-second Street 

New York City 

January 8th, 1915. 
My dear Mr. Van Zile : 

I am heartily glad that you are writing on the subject of 
the need that the United States should prepare against 
War. Preparedness for War is in reality preparedness 
against War. There is nothing more important for our 
people to understand than that sooner or later disaster, 
shame and disgrace will come to us if we do not keep our- 
selves in shape to guard our own vital rights — and it is well 
to remember that the right to national self-respect is as 
vital as any material right. Preparedness against War ren- 
ders it likely that if it should come it will not bring disaster 
and disgrace. Moreover, such preparedness is the only pos- 
sible method by which the United States can be made an 
agent in producing the Peace of Righteousness. Impotence 
is never impressive; and though it is a bad thing to arouse 
the emotion of fear in others, it is an infinitely worse thing 
to arouse the emotion of contempt. China is entirely peace- 
ful and is unable to defend herself; and therefore China is 
wholly unable to be of the slightest use on the side of inter- 
national peace. The United States will be as impotent as 
China on the side of peace if she permits herself to sink 
into the same condition of helplessness. 

With hearty wishes for the success of your volume, 

(Signed) Theodore Roosevelt. 
E. S. Van Zile, Esq. 

7 



rOEEWOED 

Historical perspective is, of necessity, a prerogative pos- 
sessed only by posterity. The ultimate significance of con- 
temporary events is a secret the answer to which lies con- 
cealed in the more or less remote future. The time has not 
come, of course, when an authoritative history of the most 
stupendous conflict the world has known, an international 
war that has involved all but one of the so-called great 
powers of the planet, can be written. It is reasonable, per- 
haps, to go even further than this and to assert that such a 
work, earnestly demanded though it may be by future gen- 
erations, will never be within the range of human attain- 
ment. History is written by Man, not by Superman, and 
must of necessity be marred by the limitations, prejudices 
and mental bias of those who produce it. 

Despite the unquestionable truth of the above proposi- 
tions, however, it is apparent that there may be temporary 
value, perhaps something of permanent significance, in an 
effort to present to the public, bewildered and appalled by 
a titanic world-tragedy, an account of the apparent causes 
of the first, possibly the last, universal war, and an outline 
of the leading events, diplomatic, military, naval and polit- 
ical, that have sprung, directly or indirectly, from the assas- 
sination of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria on the 28th 
of June, 1914, as these present themselves to the mind of 
an American who has been something of a student of his- 
tory and who is devoted to American national ideals. 

9 



10 FOEEWOKD 

It is not implied, of course, that perfect symmetry can 
be given to a production of this character by thus choosing, 
somewhat arbitrarily, a given date as a point of departure. 
The causes that underlie the War can be traced almost as 
far back as any investigator chooses to go. The battle of 
Waterloo, the Crimean War, the Franco-Prussian War, the 
recent Balkan wars, and various other critical periods in 
modern European history, offer themselves as foundation 
stones upon which the historian might reasonably base his 
work. But if perfection of fonn is not possible, if the 
roots of the present conflict are too numerous and remote 
to be traced to their final origins, if, as is apparent, the 
ultimate outcome of the greatest of all wars can not be, in 
all its bearings, forecast, it still remains possible to clarify 
the chaotic welter of recent events in Europe by a process 
of elimination that brings into view, to American eyes at 
least, something approaching a desirable historic perspec- 
tive. If, in the effort to obtain this perspective, we come 
upon revelations that, in their cumulative force, seem to be 
of grim signifioance to the people of the United States, the 
following pages may justify themselves to even the indiffer- 
ent or the too optimistic American. 



CONTENTS 



Prefatory Note by Theodore Roosevelt 
Foreword 

CHAPTEE 

I, Diplomacy's Downfall 

11. The Fashions of Mars 

III. Made in America 

IV. Corsica versus Galilee 
V. Paleolithic Survivals 

VI. Hasheesh for Warriors 

VII. The Spiritual versus the Material 

VIII. Germany's God and Japan's 

IX. Altruism, Democracy and Arms 

X. The Head Usher and His Assistant 

XI. The Peace That Never Was 

XII. Christianity at the Bar . 

XIII. The Armor of Righteousness 

XIV. The Immorality of Weakness 
XV. Valor versus Avoidance , 

XVI. The Only Hope for Peace 

XVII. Isolation and Its Perils . 

XVIII. The Stone op Sisyphus . 

XIX. The Religion op Steadfastness 
11 



7 
9,10 

15 

39 

59 

75 

93 

109 

123 

139 

157 

173 

189 

207 

219 

231 

245 

259 

271 

283 

293 



"Whose game was empires, and whose stakes were thrones, 
Whose table earth — whose dice were human bones." 

— ^Byron. 



CHAPTER I 



DIPLOMACY S DOWNFALL 



THE GAME OF EMPIRES 



CHAPTER I 

diplomacy's downfall 

Among the many traditions associated with the 
founding of the City of Rome was one to the effect 
that the god Terminus, who presided over bounda- 
ries and whose power and glory were symbolized by 
a large stone, was the only minor deity who refused 
to acknowledge the superiority of Jupiter. "A fa- 
vorable inference was drawn from his obstinacy," 
says Edward Gibbon, "which was interpreted by the 
Augurs as a sure presage that the boundaries of the 
Roman power would never recede." That the con- 
fidence of the Romans in the potency of the rebel- 
lious Terminus was misplaced it is hardly necessary 
to state, for Mars, with or without the sanction of 
Jupiter, has been always mischievously busy in un- 
doing the work of the God of the Boundaries, whose 
stone appears to be, as the centuries pass, as un- 
stable as that which provides eternal punishment for 
the crimes of the avaricious Sisyphus. 

15 



16 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

The modern heirs to "the grandeur that was 
Rome" have been, like the ancient Latins, betrayed 
by the fickle deity who alternately makes and un- 
makes the maps of the world. Repeatedly in the 
last few centuries have the powers of Europe, 
through their representatives assembled in solemn 
conclave, endeavored to place the God of the Bounda- 
ries under bonds to keep the peace, but as he was 
treacherous to those who first paid him homage so 
has he been unfaithful in more recent times to diplo- 
matists who have endeavored, with more or less hon- 
esty of purpose, to use the power of Terminus as a 
bulwark against the ever-threatening menace of the 
god Mars. For wherever the God of the Boundaries 
establishes a stone a new casus belli exists in posse, 
and toward it envious eyes, quick to note a desirable 
place in the sunshine, are turned. 

Midsummer 1914 found the nations of Europe 
confronted by the most stupendous and appalling 
crisis in the history of mankind. The hideous pos- 
sibilities lurking in the changes of boundaries caused 
by the recent Balkan wars were only vaguely sus- 
pected by the masses of the people, but to rulers, 
statesmen, diplomats and others closely in touch 
with what might be called the remorseless logic of 
instability, the havoc that Mars had just played with 
the important, but always impermanent, work of 
Terminus presented itself as fraught with novel and 



DIPLOMACY'S DOWNFALL 17 

imminent peiils to the peace of the world. The 
rapidity with which, following a state of compara- 
tive calmness in Europe, the war of wars, despite 
the most frantic efforts of diplomacy, forced a large 
part of the human race into a condition of active 
hostilities is the most amazing, if not the most 
deplorable, feature of a cataclysm the full horrors 
of which only posterity will be able to appraise. 

On July 20, Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign 
Secretary, wrote as follows to Sir H. Rumbold, Brit- 
ish Councilor of Embassy at Berlin: "I asked the 
German Ambassador today if he had any news of 
what was going on in Vienna with regard to Servia. 
He said that he had not, but Austria was certainly 
going to take some step, and he regarded the situa- 
tion as very uncomfortable." Less than three 
months later the losses in killed, wounded and miss- 
ing in the war whose approaching shadow had ren- 
dered Prince Lichnowsky "very uncomfortable" had 
been estimated conservatively at a million men. 
Russia, Germany, France, Austria, England, Servia, 
Japan, Belgium and Montenegro, with armies num- 
bering in all nearly eighteen million men, were in a 
state of war, and other nations were mobilizing while 
endeavoring, more or less hopelessly, to maintain 
their neutrality. 

That Sir Edward Grey had good reason on July 
20 to suspect that events of serious moment to Servia 



18 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

were taking place at Vienna is apparent. Gavrilo 
Prinzip, one of several Servian conspirators disgrun- 
tled at the recent, and unusually ephemeral, achieve- 
ments of the God of the Boundaries, had placed his 
name on June 28 on the list of the world's most 
noted assassins. Unknown before that date outside 
of a small circle of agitators scheming for a "greater 
Servia," he had sprung at a bound into world-wide 
prominence and had assured for himself an unen- 
viable immortality as the murderous youth whose 
crime served as a torch to explode the European 
powder-mine. The assassination of the successor to 
the Austrian throne, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, 
and of his wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg, at Sara- 
jevo, Bosnia, will be recognized by posterity as a 
tragedy productive of more slaughter and misery, 
directly and indirectly, than any single event in 
recorded history. Why the god Terminus, who be- 
trayed Rome and who has been responsible for nearly 
all the wars that the human race has fought, is to 
be held as an accessory to Prinzip's crime is shown 
by the young assassin's confession. "Although I was 
born in Bosnia," said Prinzip after his arrest, "the 
big Servian idea has always existed in me since my 
earliest childhood. I considered it unjust that a 
foreign power should be established in Bosnia, where 
the Serbs, on account of their numbers and their 
commercial and economic position, should take part 



DIPLOMACY'S DOWNFALL 19 

in the govemment. It pained me that Austria 
should oppress us, for she is the old and eternal 
enemy of Servia. I also knew that the first place 
among those who were hated by Serbs was occupied 
by the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. I knew that he 
was the sworn enemy of all Servian aspirations, and 
that he had sworn to destroy Servia and the Servian 
dynasty. I hope that the fatal revolver shots will 
open the way to the Servian army to march here to 
occupy Bosnia, for this land is destined by its in- 
clinations and traditions to belong to Big Servia." 

Fatal revolver shots indeed ! Millions on millions 
of men engaged in the ghastly work of destroying 
European civilization, tens of millions of helpless, 
hopeless women and children struggling against pov- 
erty and death, fair cities in ruins, whole countries 
ravaged and made desolate, war on land and sea, 
under the sea, in the air, rendered, through the 
achievements of modern science, more devastating 
than heretofore — these are the dire offspring of 
young Gavrilo Prinzip's disapproval of the game 
that Terminus is forever playing with the boundary- 
stones. There are many today, and in all coming 
time there will be others, who place Prinzip upon 
a pedestal as a patriot. But was not the Archduke 
a patriot ? Is not the German Kaiser a patriot ? 
Love of country, upon which the God of the Bounda- 
ries relies in the pursuance of his mischievous 



20 THE GAME OF EMPIKES 

activities, is a seemingly universal human passion 
to which both the autocrat and the anarchist, in fol- 
lowing their respective and antagonistic aims, appeal 
at times with equal success. In the embattled 
armies of Europe may be found men of every reli- 
gious creed, of every color, of every political affilia- 
tion, men loyal to autocrats, men devoted to democ- 
racy, to anarchy, to socialism, fighting and dying for 
the only passion that, in the last analysis, makes 
them all brothers. Unreasoning devotion to a cer- 
tain country and a certain flag underlies, in well- 
nigh each individual case, the motive power that has 
driven both the man with the hoe and the man with 
the coronet forth to fields where modern weapons mow 
down victims inspired by the same incentive that 
made patriots of both the ancient Roman legionary 
and his barbarous opponent. If civilization, so- 
called, should eventually perish, blown to pieces by 
lyddite, upon its monument should be carved a tat- 
tered flag and a boundary-stone, not cubical but 
spherical. 

It is true, of course, that when mobilization began 
in July, 1914, in certain countries of Europe, there 
were indications, here and there, that terrorism is 
sometimes necessary to make this passion of patriot- 
ism universally effective when the mysterious pow- 
ers-that-be have declared war. "Rather than fight 
against my Slav-brethren," exclaimed a reservist of 



DIPLOMACY'S DOWNFALL 21 

Slav origin at Salzburg, "I would level my rifle 
against my commanding officer." He was tried at 
once by a court martial and condemned to be sum- 
marily shot. In Fragile three Bohemian reservists 
were executed because they refused to fight against 
Slavs. In Buda-Festh a sectarian of the ISTazarenes 
was condemned and shot because religious scruples 
forbade him to go to war. In France and Germany 
there were, at the outset of the conflict, many So- 
cialists who at first disjDlayed an inclination to place 
their philosophical antagonism to war above their 
loyalty to their respective countries. But pressure 
from their comrades and the police combined pres- 
ently to break down their efforts to remain consis- 
tent, and the interesting fact confronts us that the 
armies of Europe are today full of Socialists amazed 
to find themselves fighting not to bring nearer an. 
economic and social millennium but from the same 
motive that inspired the Roman legionaries or their 
savage foes. The God of the Boundaries, backed by 
a firing-squad, quickly puts an end, at great inter- 
national crises, to religious, racial or philosophical 
prejudices that deny the ancient but ever rejuve- 
nated creed that it is a man's bounden duty to offer 
his life when his country requires the sacrifice. 

Upon June 28 Gavrilo Prinzip fired the shot that 
was to call Battle, Rapine, Famine, Disease and 
Death to the colors. Three weeks later Prince Lich- 



22 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

nowsky regarded the situation as "very uncomfort- 
able." There is something grimly humorous in the 
diplomatic restraint of the German Ambassador's 
choice of words. Nowhere in the historical archives 
of the race can be found documents even remotely 
approaching in human interest the published letters 
and telegrams that were exchanged by the European 
ambassadors and their subordinates during the piti- 
fully few weeks that elapsed between the assassina- 
tion of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the invasion 
of Servia by the forces of Austria-Hungary. These 
diplomatic interchanges have been given to the world 
under the title of the White, the Orange and the 
Gray Papers. Posterity will bind them in Red. 

Diplomacy, long devoted to the praiseworthy ef- 
fort of preventing the vagaries of the God of the 
Boundaries from precipitating a world-wide war, 
realized at the outset that it was confronted sud- 
denly, almost unexpectedly, by a problem more dif- 
ficult of solution, and more iconoclastic if not solved, 
than any international complication that had hith- 
erto startled and tested the well-nigh limitless re- 
sourcefulness of the European chancelleries. For 
the crisis that had arisen, involving the issue of war 
or peace in a large portion of the civilized world, had 
to be, under existing conditions, controlled, if con- 
trolled it could be, by Emperors, Kings, Ambassa- 
dors, Ministers, Chancellors, Prime Ministers, Sec- 



DIPLOMACY'S DOWNFALL 23 

retaries for Foreign Affairs and their assistants. If 
representative bodies, Reichstag, Parliament, Duma, 
Chamber of Deputies, were to have a part in the 
endeavor to save the world from an impending cata- 
clysm, of unprecedented possibilities for destruc- 
tiveness, it was evident that their role would be not 
unlike that of the chorus in a Greek tragedy. As 
for the people at large, it was for them, if a war, 
universal or restricted, should become unavoidable, 
to provide the men, the money and the mourners. 

Close study of the diplomatic interchanges in 
Europe from the latter part of July to the first few 
days in August force an unprejudiced student to 
several unavoidable general conclusions. "There is 
a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how 
we will." Neither this generation nor posterity will 
be able to convict any individual, or group of indi- 
viduals, of full responsibility for the overthrow of 
the pillars that upheld, less securely than had been 
supposed, the temple of European civilization. The 
heir-apparent to the Austrian throne had been as- 
sassinated by Servian conspirators. The reigning 
house of Austria naturally demanded redress. Ser- 
via, humbly enough, agreed to conform to the 
demands of Austria in so far as they did not deprive 
her of a future national existence ; accepting, with 
two seemingly justifiable exceptions, all the terms 
of Austria's ultimatum and suggesting that the de- 



24 THE GAME OF EMPIKES 

mands to which she could not accede be submitted 
to arbitration. Russia's interests, and, of course, her 
sympathies, were on the side of Servia. The house 
of cards, erected by European diplomacy after the 
second Balkan war had played ducks and drakes with 
the boundary-stones, was tumbling down, and bade 
fair to bury the peace of the world under its flimsy 
ruins. 

Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary, en- 
deavored vainly to save the situation. His proposal 
that a conference of the four great powers not im- 
mediately concerned in the questions at issue be- 
tween Austria and Servia — namely, France, Ger- 
many, Italy and Great Britain — be held at once was 
based upon common sense and momentarily seemed 
to promise a method of escape from the impending 
world-tragedy. As we look back upon it now, Sir 
Edward's appeal to reason, his invocation to a mod- 
em deity, the God of Arbitration, takes upon itself 
the nature of a challenge to so-called Civilization to 
vindicate itself, to prove at the most awful crisis 
in the history of the race that mankind has grown 
sufficiently enlightened, sufficiently elevated above 
the ancestral cave-man, to defend and conserve the 
higher human attributes that have seemingly been 
the acquisitions we have fondly attributed to a 
process called, perhaps too hastily, human progress. 
For if ever, in the troublous struggle of the race to 



DIPLOMACY'S DOWNFALL 25 

what have appeared to be higher planes of being, a 
crisis that pointed both upward and downward had 
been reached it confronted mankind in the last weeks 
of July, 1914. The upward pathway led to peace or, 
at the least, to a localization of the war between 
Austria and Servia. Downward the crisis pointed 
to a conflict so widespread, so potent in destructive- 
ness, so full of unknown and unprecedented agencies 
of disaster, that even the modern successor of the 
ancient god Mars, today called Militarism, shud- 
dered at the outlook. 

Sir Edward Grey's effort to save Europe from 
becoming a himian slaughter-house proved futile. 
France and Italy cordially agreed to support him in 
his effort to use arbitration as a poultice to heal the 
blows of racial, national and dynastic hatreds, but 
Germany, employing the language of diplomacy to 
conceal her thoughts, placed an insurmountable bar- 
rier in the path of the only remaining project that 
gave to diplomacy the slightest chance to fulfill its 
highest mission, namely, to keep Mars quiet while 
Terminus plays with the boundary-stones. London, 
Paris and Rome approved of a conference that might 
prevent the fire that Prinzip's "fatal shots" had 
started from becoming a general conflagration. Ber- 
lin split diplomatic hairs and refused to conform to 
Sir Edward Grey's proposal upon the basis that the 
form of procedure he suggested was not adapted to 



26 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

the exigencies of the case at issue, and that Austria 
should not be haled before the tribunal of Europe in 
a manner that placed her upon the same level as a 
Balkan state. Whatever might happen to modern 
civilization, a reigning Hohenzollern felt obliged to 
defend the imperial dignity of a reigning Haps- 
burg. 

At this, the greatest crisis that the race has yet 
confronted, it is interesting to observe that no com- 
munications passed between the legislative bodies 
representing the various peoples whose lives and pos- 
sessions were hanging upon the issues under discus- 
sion by rulers and diplomatists. Parliamentary ac- 
tion, conforming to precedent, consisted, both on the 
Continent and in Great Britain, in eventually ratify- 
ing, officially, drastic measures that the impotence 
of diplomacy had made inevitable, and in voting war 
supplies to monarchs, closely related by blood, whose 
divine right to speak the final word that plunged 
millions of men into war had been again made mani- 
fest to the eyes of a self-deceived generation. His- 
torians have dwelt entertainingly, and more or less 
convincingly, upon the amazing progress made in 
Europe during the last century by Democracy. 
They have, in many cases, pointed to the seemingly 
incontrovertible evidence that democratic tendencies 
are antagonistic fundamentally to militarism. But 
Democracy as a force, side by side with Diplomacy 



DIPLOMACY'S DOWNFALL 27 

as a fine art, failed woefully to avert what, it is to 
be fondly hoped, is to be known for many genera- 
tions as the war of wars. What power, then, defiant 
of Diplomacy and disregardfnl of Democracy, was 
siifiiciently great to plunge civilization into what is 
practically a universal war ? Can it be possible that 
Autocracy, Hereditary Monarchy, is so potent in the 
twentieth century that it could give the fillip, at the 
most crucial moment in the career of mankind, that 
should determine the all-embracing issue of war or 
peace ? 

In connection with this astounding query, for 
such it is when thus baldly put, various telegrams 
that were exchanged by certain royal personages on 
the last days of July, 1914, have taken their place 
as unrivaled in grim significance among all the mes- 
sages that have clicked across international wires 
since the ingenuity of Morse made telegraphy prac- 
ticable. If their phraseology has caused laughter in 
a world not at present given to merriment, that fact 
does not detract from the overwhelming effect of the 
proof they furnish that the attitude of Louis XIV 
toward the state is assumed by certain reigning 
monarchs today, an attitude placing them, at a great 
world crisis, in a position in which they can use 
diplomatists, deputies and democrats to further their 
own personal ends. The King is not dead! Long 
live the King! 



28 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

On July 30, Prince Henry of Prussia telegraphed 
to the King of England in part as follows: "Have 
informed William (the German Kaiser) of what you 
kindly told me at Buckingham Palace last Sunday, 
who gratefully received your message. William, 
much preoccupied, is trying his utmost to fulfill 
jSTicky's appeal to him to work for maintenance of 
peace and is in constant telegraphic communication 
with Nicky, who today confirms the news that mili- 
tary measures have been ordered by him equal to 
mobilization, measures which have been taken al- 
ready five days ago. We are furthermore informed 
that France is making military preparations whereas 
we have taken no measures, but may be forced to do 
so any moment, should our neighbors continue, 
which then would mean a European war. If you 
really and earnestly wish to prevent this terrible 
disaster, may I suggest you using your influence on 
France and also Russia to keep neutral, which seems 
to me would be most useful. . . . Believe me that 
William is most sincere in his endeavors to maintain 
peace, but that the military preparations of his two 
neighbors may at last force him to follow their ex- 
ample for the sake of his own country, which other- 
wise would remain defenseless." 

In answer to this His Majesty of England at once 
sent the following dispatch : ''Thanks for your tele- 
gram. So pleased with William's efforts to concert 



DIPLOMACY'S DOWNFALL 29 

with Nicky to maintain peace. Indeed, I am ear- 
nestly desirous that such an irreparable disaster as a 
European War should be averted. My Government 
is doing its utmost, suggesting to Russia and France 
to suspend further military preparations if Austria 
will be satisfied with occupation of Belgrade and 
neighboring Servian territory as a hostage for satis- 
factory settlement of her demands, other countries 
meanwhile suspending their war preparations. Trust 
William will use his great influence to induce Aus- 
tria to accept this proposal, thus proving that Ger- 
many and England are working together to prevent 
what would be an international catastrophe. Pra}^ 
assure William I am doing and shall continue to do 
all that lies in my power to preserve the peace of 
Europe." 

On July 31st, the German Kaiser, signing him- 
self "Willy," telegraphed this message to his cousin 
"Georgie," King of England: "Many thanks for 
your kind telegram. Your proposals coincide with 
my ideas and with the statements I got this night 
from Vienna, which I have had forwarded to Lon- 
don. I just received news from Chancellor that 
official notification has just reached him that this 
night Nicky has ordered the mobilization of his 
whole army and fleet. He has not even awaited the 
results of the mediation I am working at and left 
me without any news. I am off for Berlin to take 



30 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

measures for insuring safety of my eastern frontiers, 
where strong Russian troops are already posted." 

Behold the amazing interplay of antagonistic 
forces : Democracy, an increasing power in Europe, 
as in the world at large, is not well disposed toward 
war; Diplomacy deprecates it, but Despotism de- 
crees it. England's king, who is not an autocrat, 
is having trouble with his subjects; seems, in fact, 
to be threatened with a civil uprising. His neutral- 
ity appears to be assured as a matter of prudence, if 
not of necessity, if Cousin Willie assists his ally, 
Francis Joseph, to punish ISTicky for backing Servia 
against Austria. It will be necessary, of course, for 
Willie to overwhelm France quickly that he may 
have at his disposal sufficient forces to confront 
IsTicky's troops in the East when their slow mobiliza- 
tion has made them more or less formidable. 

Meanwhile it is best, perhaps, not to trust too 
thoroughly to Cousin George's inability or disinclina- 
tion to fulfill his obligations as a member of the 
Triple Entente and a pledged defender of Belgian 
neutrality. In fact. King George seems to have a 
most reprehensible way of obeying very lofty and 
altruistic motives. To put France in her place, and 
get his armies back in time to teach Nicky the lesson 
he needs, it is necessary for Willie to make use of 
Belgium, gently but firmly, as if her territory had 
already become a part of the German Empire. The 



DIPLOMACY'S DOWNFALL 31 

Kaiser's Chancellor knows how to state the matter 
with forceful bluntness, does he not? "Gentlemen, 
we are now in a state of necessity," says von Beth- 
mann-Hollweg to the Reichstag on August 4th, "and 
necessity knows no law. Our troops have occupied 
Luxemburg, and perhaps they are already on Bel- 
gian soil. Gentlemen, that is contrary to the dic- 
tates of International Law. . . . The wrong — I 
speak openly — that we are committing we will en- 
deavor to make good as soon as our military goal 
has been reached. Anybody who is threatened as we 
are threatened, and is fighting for his highest pos- 
sessions, can have only one thought — ^how to hack 
his way through." 

But when a nation, with the laudable intention of 
finding its divinely appointed place in the sunshine, 
from whence it may disseminate culture and spir- 
ituality for the benefit of a world that is, like Bel- 
gium, too thickly populated with barbarians, sets out 
to "hack its way through" it is essential for success 
that there should be no misapprehension at the out- 
set regarding all the factors that will affect the ulti- 
mate outcome of the venture. It may be true, as the 
Chancellor asserted, that necessity knows no law, but 
necessity, before it rushes into action, should always 
know the facts. It is now apparent that Germany's 
warlike precipitancy was based upon several suppo- 
sitions that proved to be ill-founded. That Belgium 



32 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

was either too weak or too frightened to fight, that 
England was too disturbed regarding Ireland and 
India to fulfill her treaty obligations to Belgium, 
that Russia would be slow in mobilizing, and that 
Italy would construe liberally her duty to the Triple 
Alliance were convictions held by the Kaiser and his 
advisers that illustrate how easy it is for men to 
believe what they passionately wish to believe. Bel- 
gium resisted, England rushed to war, supported by 
the Irish and the Hindus, Russia mobilized with 
great rapidity and Italy, technically correct in her 
attitude, announced her neutrality. 

It must not be inferred from the above, however, 
that England's procedure was left by Germany wholly 
to chance. The latter made to Great Britain, just 
before actual hostilities had begun, what Prime Min- 
ister Asquith has labeled ''infamous proposals." 
The neutrality of Belgium had been guaranteed by 
the European powers, including Prussia, in 1839. 
Sir Edward Grey, now that war seemed to be in- 
evitable, had asked Germany and France, frankly 
and pertinently, what attitude they intended to take 
toward their solemn obligations under an ancient but 
still valid treaty. The answer of France was em- 
phatically to the effect that she recognized her duty 
toward Belgium and would abide by it. Germany 
dodged the moral issue involved in Sir Edward 
Grey's query. If England would stand aside, Ger- 



DIPLOMACY'S DOWNFALL 33 

many promised to compensate Belgium eventually 
for allowing her to get through to France without 
excessive "hacking," and agreed to reestablish Bel- 
gium's independence at the end of the war. Assur- 
ances were also given to England that German de- 
signs against France were not inordinately grasping 
and that French colonies seemed to offer more tempt- 
ing opportunities for Germans to find desirable 
places in the sunshine than France itself. There 
are those who assert, in connection with German 
diplomatic activities at this time, that she offered to 
Italy a bribe consisting of Nice and Savoy in return 
for active support in the approaching conflict for the 
spread of German culture. If "infamous proposals" 
were made to England, is it unreasonable to believe 
that such were also made to Italy ? 

On August 3rd, Sir Edward Grey delivered a 
parliamentary speech, destined to become historic, in 
which he declared that on moral, political and diplo- 
matic grounds it was Great Britain's duty, in defense 
of the sacredness of international treaties and the 
rights of neutral states, to enter upon a justifiable 
war. On July 28 Austria had declared war against 
Servia. On August 1st Germany had declared war 
against Russia. Diplomacy's house of cards had 
been overthrown and the survival in the world of 
hereditary autocracy had become responsible, in the 
last analysis, for the precipitation of an interna- 



34 THE GAME OF EMPIKES 

tional conflict of greater magnitude than mankind 
had hitherto experienced. It was asserted above that 
no one man, nor group of men, can be held wholly 
responsible for the world tragedy that so quickly 
followed the assassination of the Archduke Franz 
Ferdinand. If it be true, as many partisans are in- 
clined to maintain, that the German Kaiser had it 
in his power to prevent this universal war, in which 
he and his allies are fighting against tremendous 
odds, the indictment lies not against an individual 
but against a system, not against an autocrat, a prod- 
uct of heredity and environment, but against a peo- 
ple, a nation, that has permitted in the twentieth 
century the continued existence of a fundamentally 
despotic form of government that, despite its ap- 
parent recognition of representative forms, was able, 
at a crisis affecting the very bases of civilization, to 
give dominance to that reactionary force known by 
the general term Militarism. "If it C9sts me my 
throne, I will bury the world under its ruins," said 
K'apoleon to Mettemich, in a moment of passion, but 
in a calmer mood he remarked : "I have always been 
of the opinion that the sovereignty lay in the people." 
The influence of modem scientific modes of thought 
applied to the study of history leads us today to 
the conviction that for what is called the Napoleonic 
era the French nation was responsible. With his 
people supporting him, an autocrat can have his 



DIPLOMACY'S DOWNFALL 35 

way. Without them, he goes into exile. He who 
today condemns only the Kaiser for the war of wars 
is too severe upon an individual and too lenient to a 
nation whose recent prophets have been Nietzsche, 
Treitschke and Bernhardi. 



CHAPTEE II 

THE FASHIONS OF MABS 



CHAPTEE II 



THE FASHIONS OF MAES 



Historical parallels are sometimes extremely en- 
lightening, despite the fact that the temptation to 
carry them too far in detail always besets a student 
of the past, and frequently leads to erroneous con- 
clusions regarding contemporaneous events. If, 
however, one fully comprehends the errors that may 
creep into the comparative method of treating his- 
torical periods, it is possible to avoid them; to so 
safeguard our investigations into the records of pre- 
vious generations as to make them of value in our 
endeavor to throw light upon the permanently sig- 
nificant events of our own time. The somewhat de- 
pressing truth that human nature has changed little, 
if at all, during the ages in which mankind has been 
engaged in making its self-revelation serves as a sta- 
ble foundation-stone upon which to base a judgment 
of passing occurrences and even to rest a prophecy 
regarding the immediate future. 

Before going into details, therefore, respecting 
the tragic occurrences that followed the downfall of 

39 



40 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

Diplomacy in July, 1914, it may be worth while to 
glance at the situation in Europe just a century ago, 
a situation that, taken broadly, emphasizes the grain 
of truth in the assertion that history repeats itself, 
and convinces us that until man becomes by evolu- 
tion superman there can be but little that is really 
new under the stars. For the year 1814 found an 
aggressive autocrat, addicted to the habit of "hack- 
ing his way through," at war with a coalition of 
European powers determined to check his ambitions. 
N^apoleon — the incarnation of last-century militarism 
— had won, to the eyes of the Allies of that day, too 
large a place for his people in the sunshine. 

The reductio ad dbsurdum of Hereditary Autoc- 
racy had been exhibited, to a world seething with 
new ideas, by Louis XVI. The reductio ad absur- 
dum of Government by the People had been dis- 
played to the disgusted eyes of a Corsican lieutenant 
by the sans-culotte of Paris. Crowning himself Em- 
peror of the French by the divine right of genius 
Napoleon overran Europe, indifferent to the toll of 
human life his victories cost, and persuading his 
subjects, and sometimes even the minds of his op- 
ponents, that widespread slaughter was necessary to 
the upbuilding of an all-inclusive European Empire 
that, under his despotic sway, should result in what 
he called "European regeneration under monarchical 
forms." The sacrifice of innumerable human lives 



THE FASHIONS OF MARS 41 

to his purpose was not a matter of great moment to 
JSTapoleon. "In spite of all the libels, I have no fear 
whatever about my fame," he wrote at St. Helena. 
"Posterity will do me justice. Had I succeeded, I 
would have died with the reputation of the greatest 
man that ever existed. I have fought fifty pitched 
battles, almost all of which I have won. Europe was 
at my feet." To Metternich, who said to him in 
1813, "It rests with your Majesty to give the world 
peace," ISTapoleon replied, with a haughtiness worthy 
of one born to the purple, "My honor first, and then 
peace. You cannot know what passes through a sol- 
dier's mind. A man like me does not count the lives 
of a million men." In a recently published book by 
Miss Anne Topham, entitled "Memories of the Kai- 
ser's Court," the writer, who acted as a governess to 
Emperor William's children, speaking of her im- 
perial employer, says: "Sometimes he falls into 
ISTapoleonic attitudes, and occasionally attempts to 
pinch the ear of a particular friend." 

It will be necessary presently for us to turn our 
attention to the stupendous armed conflicts that have 
made the war of wars a fascinating study to the 
expert in tactics and grand strategy, and a waking 
nightmare to the layman who fails to appreciate the 
fact that human slaughter is, under certain circum- 
stances, a fine art and worthy as such of critical 
consideration. On August 4, 1914, Sir Edward 



42 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

Grey received from Brussels a dispatch to the effect 
that German troops had entered Belgian territory, 
that Liege had been summoned to surrender by a 
small party of Germans, eventually driven off, and 
that a war that was to affect, directly or indirectly^ 
every man, woman and child on earth had been ac- 
tually begun. Battles were presently to be fought 
that make l^apoleon's greatest campaigns look in 
comparison like outpost skirmishes. Where a cen- 
tury ago a few hundred thousands of men were con- 
fronting each other on the battlefields of Europe, 
millions of combatants in August, 1914, were rush- 
ing toward each other to engage in prolonged strug- 
gles on battle-fronts of a length hitherto unknown to 
war. 

That we may, perhaps, the better comprehend the 
amazing progress that has been made since the era 
of the Corsican Ogre in the gentle art of human 
slaughter it may be worth our while to dwell for a 
moment upon the details of one of IN'apoleon's typi- 
cal battles. The splendid achievements of man's 
genius during the last century in rendering warfare 
constantly more complicated and many-sided become 
pleasingly apparent by thus comparing one of 'Na,- 
poleon's simple little masterpieces of war with those 
titanic and prolonged struggles that make such bat- 
tles as the Mame or the Aisne convincing proof that 
during the last century there has been an improve- 



THE FASHIO^^S OF MARS 43 

ment in warfare's methods of destruction highly 
creditable to modem civilization. Mars, who sets 
the fashions in military weapons, is as fickle a god 
as Terminus. 

The battle of Wurschen, described somewhat in 
detail in the following official report, while not one 
of N^apoleon's greatest victories, is a fair example 
of the many engagements that resulted from his long- 
continued efforts to carry French culture to all parts 
of Europe. In this case, Napoleon's battle-front was 
a little over ten miles in length. The average battle- 
front in the present war of wars can be visualized, 
perhaps, if we imagine an army with one of its 
wings resting on ISTew York City, its center on Al- 
bany and its other wing on Utica. Compared with 
the battle of the Marne the battle of Wurschen, then, 
was an insignificant affair, but its details are of 
value to us in our effort to come upon the perspec- 
tive for which we are striving. 

"At five o'clock in the morning of the 21st of 
May, 1813, the Emperor took up his station on a 
hill three-quarters of a league beyond Bautzen. At 
eleven o'clock the Duke of Ragusa advanced 2,000 
yards and opened a terrific cannonade. The Guard 
and the reserves, infantry and cavalry, were masked 
and had convenient debouches for advancing to the 
right or to the left as. events might develop. The 



U THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

enemy was by this means kept in doubt as to the 
real point of attack. 

"In the meanwhile the Prince of the Moskowa 
(Marshal ISTey) had driven the enemy from the vil- 
lage of Klix, and pushed everything in his front 
steadily back to Preilitz. At ten o'clock he carried 
that village; but, on the enemy's reserves being 
thrown in, the Prince of Moskowa was driven back. 

"The Duke of Dalmatia got into action at one in 
the afternoon. The enemy, who had discovered all 
the danger with which they were threatened by the 
turn the battle had taken, attempted to check the 
Duke of Dalmatia's attack. The crisis of the battle 
was clearly at hand. By facing the left the Em- 
peror, in the space of twenty minutes, with the 
Guard, the four divisions of Latour Maubourg and 
a great number of guns, reached the flank of the 
enemy, which was the center of the Russian army. 

"The enemy were obliged to weaken their right 
to repel this new attack. The Prince of the Mos- 
kowa seized this instant to resume his forward move- 
ment. Turning the allied army, he pressed on 
toward Wurschen. It was now three in the after- 
noon, and with the army still quite uncertain as to 
whether it had been successful, and while a terrific 
fire raged along a line of three leagTies, the Emperor 
announced that the battle was won. 

"The enemy, seeing that their right was turned. 



THE FASHIONS OF MAES 45 

beat a retreat, and soon that retreat turned to flight. 
At seven in the evening the Prince of the Moskowa 
and General Lauriston reached Wurschen. The Em- 
peror slept by the roadside, surrounded by the 
Guard." 

There can be little doubt that the Emperor's slum- 
ber that night was deep and dreamless. He had 
accomplished a fine day's work, putting to rout a 
large army of Prussians and Kussians between the 
hours of five in the morning and seven in the even- 
ing and had again exhibited his unrivaled genius as 
a master of strategy. And he called this action a 
battle ! What if ISTapoleon, reincarnated, should find 
himself today suddenly in command of the French 
armies now led by General Joffre ? He who asserted 
that the winning of fifty odd battles had been an 
achievement that appeared to be in the restrospect 
comparatively simple and easy would be, in the first 
place, appalled by the astounding size of modern 
armies, the length of the battle-fronts and the dura- 
tion of time required to produce definite results. 
"The great art in battle," said ISTapoleon at St. 
Helena, "is to change the line of operations during 
the course of the engagement ; that is an idea of my 
own and quite new. The art of war does not require 
complicated maneuvers ; the simplest are the best, 
and common sense is fundamental. The most diffi- 
cult thing is to guess the enemy's plan, to sift the 



46 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

truth from all the reports that come in. The rest 
merely requires common sense; it's like a boxing- 
match, the more you punch the better it is. It is 
also necessary to read the map well." 

While no exception can be taken in a general way 
to Napoleon's views as an expert regarding the fine 
art of winning battles, it is apparent from the above- 
quoted propositions that the evolutionary process 
has been, as is the way with it, changing the simple 
into the complex in the realm of warfare since those 
glorious days when the Little Corporal's common 
sense made a slaughter-house of Europe highly cred- 
itable, considering the primitive weapons and meth- 
ods at his command, to his military genius. The 
most expert stage-coach whip of a century ago would 
be as helpless as a child if, come back to earth from 
the grave, he should be placed in the cab of a loco- 
motive and told to display his skill as a propeller of 
vehicles. Common sense wouldn't be of much serv- 
ice to him. The genius that had made him the whip 
of whips in the Georgian era would bum without 
avail in a locomotive cab. Our reincarnated Na- 
poleon, placed in command of a modern army, while 
delighted, we may be sure, at the variety and ef- 
fectiveness of twentieth century weapons, would be 
impotent in his efforts to make use of his simplified 
strategy on a battle-front extending from the Eng- 
lish Channel to the boundaries of Switzerland. To 



THE FASHIONS OF MAES 47 

begin a battle at sunrise and get happily to sleep as 
a victor shortly after sunset was a possibility to a 
Napoleon but is not to be compassed by a Von 
Moltke or a Joffre. 

What is true of the Napoleonic battles compared 
with those of today applies with almost equal force 
to the conflicts of the American Civil War and the 
Franco-Prussian war. A few hundred thousand 
combatants have been replaced by millions, decisive 
engagements whose duration formerly was not often 
greater than, at the longest, a week now run into 
months, battle-fronts short enough in other days to 
be swept by a commander's eyes are now more or 
less matters of conjecture at headquarters, conjec- 
ture based upon long-distance messages. Com- 
manders worn with the tedium of a stubborn battle 
get leave of absence for a week and return to the 
front, recuperated, to resume their activities in the 
same battle. Waterloo would have been a mere epi- 
sode on the flank in the battle of the Aisne, not 
given much space, if any, in the official dispatches. 

When, therefore, on August 14, Sir Edward Grey 
received word from Brussels that German troops 
had entered Belgian territory, he had sound reasons 
for the horror which he felt, and voiced, at the 
calamity that had befallen civilization. But neither 
the British Foreign Secretary nor the leading mili- 
tary experts of Europe, apprehensive though they 



48 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

were regarding the dire possibilities that appeared 
to lurk in the approaching war, realized fully how 
widespread was to be the coming conflict, how stub- 
bornly fought were to be its battles, how hideously 
large was to be the "rake-off" taken by Death from 
this game of Empires, "whose stakes are thrones, 
whose table earth, whose dice are human bones." 
Bernhardi, a high-priest of Militarism, saw with a 
clear vision the trend of events and will forever rank 
high as a prophet, but even to him, as to his master, 
the Kaiser, the colossal character of the struggle pre- 
cipitated by Gavrilo Prinzip's "fatal shots" must 
have come as something of a surprise. 

In fact what we have been calling the war of wars 
might justly be named the war of the unexpected. 
The outcome, as it was, of the unlooked-for failure 
of Diplomacy, it displayed at the very outset a ten- 
dency to provide a startled world not only with rea- 
sons for despondency but also for astonishment. The 
world, and especially the German Kaiser and his ad- 
visers, had taken it for granted that the Walloons, 
called by Napoleon the finest fighting men in 
Europe, had been so thoroughly devoted for several 
generations to the gentle, thrifty ways of peace that 
the old Adam in them was dead, not merely sleep- 
ing. But a strange thing happened at Liege. Shop- 
keepers, under the influence of that mysterious, po- 
tent and well-night universal passion called patriot- 



THE FASHIONS OF MARS 49 

isnij developed over night into heroes whose doughty 
deeds will go down to posterity in song and story. 
Hard-working, plodding, unimaginative Walloons, 
long forgetful of the fact that they were descended 
from a race famous in the annals of war, rose in 
their might and gave to an astonished and admiring 
world an exhibition of daring and self-sacrifice 
against the overwhelming forces of an unprincipled 
invader that has placed the name of Liege upon that 
immortal honor list where Americans are proud to 
find their Concord and their Lexington. On August 
7, 1914, M. Poincare, President of the French Re- 
public, sent the following telegram to the King of 
the Belgians: "I am happy to announce to your 
Majesty that the Government of the Republic has 
just decorated with the Legion of Honor the gallant 
town of Liege." Reactionary, mediaeval, somewhat 
bombastic, do you say? Perhaps. But we shall 
discover, as we follow the course of the war of wars, 
that it is responsible for many curious revivals not 
perhaps without value to an age that had sacrificed 
many lofty ideals upon the materialistic altar of 
commercialism. Krupp guns are the latest achieve- 
ment of the God of the Ordnance but, strange as it 
may seem, recent battles have demonstrated the 
value of the mediaeval breast-plates as a protection at 
long range against even the very latest style of bul- 
lets. Wireless telegraphy is invaluable, of course, 



50 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

to those who lead armies to-day, but never before in 
the history of war has the carrier pigeon been em- 
ployed to better advantage than by General Joffre. 
D'Artagnan, Porthos, and Athos have been fighting 
side by side with Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd 
in the trenches on the Aisne and in Flanders, and it 
has been rumored that Sir Galahad and Don Quix- 
ote have been seen leading cavalry charges on the 
extreme flanks of the Allied armies. 

The stubborn resistance of the forts around Liege 
to the reckless onslaughts of the Kaiser's astonished 
but relentless forces was of some importance from a 
military standpoint. It must be borne in mind that 
the Germans were in a hurry, under the necessity to 
hack their way through to Paris — where the Kaiser 
is said to have made a dinner engagement for the 
17th of September — in time to get back to trounce the 
Russians who talk wildly, under the influence, no 
doubt, of vodka, of dictating terms of peace to Ger- 
many and Austria from — was there ever such an 
absurd dream? — Berlin! It was annoying, unbear- 
able, to be forced to lose time and thousands of men 
in teaching this detestable city of Liege, with its 
forts, field-works, trenches, mines, barbed-wire en- 
tanglements, that, as our admirable von Bethmann- 
Hollweg says, necessity knows no law. It was neces- 
sity, was it not, that compelled us to rush through 
Luxemburg? But Luxemburg was wise. Luxem- 



THE FASHIONS OF MAKS 61 

burg knows her place. It is true, of course, that 
the Grand Duchess Marie Adelaide endeavored to 
block the pathway of our army by driving her motor- 
car lengthwise across a bridge, waving a copy of the 
Treaty of Berlin in our faces and threatening to 
telegTaph her protest to — of all men — the Kaiser! 
But she did not pull a revolver from her belt and 
shoot at our front file. The Grand Duchess and her 
subjects were annoyed — naturally enough — but not 
hysterical, not dangerous, not mad enough to lay 
down their lives to assert — how absurd it sounds ! — 
the divine right of neutrality. 

But those infernal Walloons! They denied the 
self-evident proposition that at a crisis threatening 
the very existence of German militarism — for were 
not France, Russia and England mobilizing their 
armies, dispatching their fleets to destroy us and our 
only ally ? — the signatures of dead and gone statesmen 
to a scrap of paper are of no real significance. They 
did worse than this. They fought us like incarnate 
devils. Our mass formation — expensive in lives but 
psychologically necessary to German troops — failed 
to put the fear of God and the Kaiser into the 
hearts of these barbarous Belgians, indifferent to our 
crying necessity to save time in our praiseworthy 
effort to place Deutschland ueher Alles. We gave 
them repeated opportunities to surrender their old- 
fashioned but remarkably powerful forts without 



52 THE GAME OF EMPIKES 

further loss of their lives and ours. But they seemed 
to prefer death to what they foolishly considered 
disgrace and continued stubbornly to exact from us 
a sacrifice in men and time that was most exasper- 
ating. The men we could afford, perhaps, to lose, 
but the time squandered in bringing Liege to terms 
was costly — how costly only the future can deter- 
mine. 

Fortunately for the cause of culture Mars, the 
deity who dictates the changes in fashions that are 
constantly adding to the variety of death-dealing 
weapons, so creditable of late years to the ingenuity 
of civilized man, had provided the exponents of 
militarism-in-action with a new and splendidly de- 
structive engine of war. The Krupp siege gun is 
designed to make the strongest forts, even though 
these have been erected to defend the neutrality of 
small states and the sanctity of international treaties 
and are manned by heroes defending their country 
from wanton invasion, look eventually like the ruins 
that demonstrate the might and majesty of a high- 
power earthquake. Kietzschke, Treitschke and Bern- 
hardi have accomplished a most valuable work in 
presenting to the intellectual world the philosophi- 
cal bases upon which men of the highest culture may 
rest their conviction that might makes right, but 
when the time comes for putting belief into action 
Krupp comes into his own and a 42-centimeter how- 



THE FASHIONS OF MARS 53 

itzer can make more converts to the Deutschland 
ueher Alles creed than any book, or books, yet writ- 
ten. The arguments used by the siege guns can be 
answered only by guns of greater power, and so, in 
the end, the forts of Liege were forced to abandon 
the debate, silenced finally by shells against whose 
devastating might even the wonderful valor of Wal- 
loons fighting for their honor and their homes could 
not prevaiL 

But Liege has done a great, a stupendous, an im- 
mortal deed. The Belgians are destined to pay 
dearly for the check given by Liege to the carefully 
devised designs of the German General Staff, a 
check that jeopardizes at the outset a comprehensive 
plan of action that has required many years to per- 
fect; but Belgian valor has aroused the admiration 
of the world and has won for the cause of the Allies 
many adherents in America who, had it not been 
for the heroic defense of Liege, which at the outset 
of the war of wars made clearer than could any 
diplomatic interchanges the simple moral issue in- 
volved in the great struggle, might have been men- 
tally bewildered by the adroit arg-uments that have 
been presented of late by German sympathizers in 
behalf of the proposition that necessity knows no 
law, that everywhere and always might makes right. 

Military experts tell us now that the check given 
to the German invaders by the Walloons of Liege 



64 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

had no great influence upon the final outcome of 
the earlier campaigns of the war in the West ; that, 
in fact, the advantage that might have been gained 
by the Allies from the unexpected and stubborn 
resistance of the forts surrounding Liege was thrown 
away by the French commanders. However this 
may be, there can never be room for doubt regard- 
ing the tremendous moral influence, world-wide in 
its effects, of the challenge that the heroes of Liege 
gave to armed expansionists whose excuse for in- 
vading a neutral state was as old and weak as their 
siege guns were new and strong. 

Alas for Belgium ! For her devotion to the 
propositions that two and two make four, that right 
is right and wrong is wrong, that even in a ma- 
terialistic age there are certain ideals worthy of 
preservation, that death is preferable to dishonor, 
she has suffered a punishment so hideous that the 
details thereof have horrified a world grown of 
late years somewhat indifferent to tales of human 
wrongs and sufferings. Philosophy, Literature, Sci- 
ence and Art have been working together in Ger- 
many, as allies of Militarism, to hypnotize a power- 
ful nation into the belief that when the hour of 
destiny has struck whatever the strong may do to 
the weak is justified by the alleged needs of that 
same powerful nation. 

In the name of Culture — aye, in the name of the 



THE FASHIONS OF MAES 55 

Almighty — Belgium must be chastised for her 
temerity in defying the cohorts of enlightenment, in 
a way that shall serve as an eternal warning to 
lesser peoples who neglect the teachings of Nietzsche 
and fail to realize what Krupp has accomplished 
for the higher civilization. What a Corsican bandit 
once did to Prussia shall be made to look like the 
work of a predatory amateur compared with the 
blight that must fall upon Belgium for her refusal 
to admit that the Word of the Kaiser and the Word 
of God are one and the samel 



CHAPTER III 

MADE IN AAIEEICA 



CHAPTER III 



MADE IN AMERICA 



Terminus, always erratic, had gone insane and 
Mars was preparing joyously for the time of his 
evil life. The God of the Boundaries had turned 
the earth into a golf-course and was knocking the 
houndary-stones wildly about the planet with a war- 
club. Jupiter, once all-powerful, had been deposed 
by the minor gods, who wantonly make mischief 
and humorously call it Progress. Men rushed to 
battle praying to God, Jehovah, Christ, Buddha, 
Brahma, Mahomet or the Virgin Mary, and the 
crowned heads of a generation that secretly mocks 
at kings and openly obeys them uttered blasphemous 
petitions for victory. War declarations became epi- 
demic. Late in July Austria had declared war on 
Servia. Germany, Russia, France, Montenegro, Bel- 
gium, Great Britain and Japan issued their chal- 
lenges to their respective foes in the order named 
and in November Turkey succumbed to the Berserker 
rage that had turned the Temple of Civilization 
into a madhouse. Widespread credence was given 

59 



60 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

to the rumor that the plumbing of the Peace Palace 
at the Hague was out of order. 

Before resuming the thread of our narrative — 
as a novelist might say — a thread upon which must 
be strung presently the blood-red beads of battles 
more appalling than those man's savage, barbarous 
and semi-barbarous past had begotten, it may be ad- 
visable to dwell for a moment upon the mental at- 
titude of the average American toward the cataclysm 
that had so suddenly overtaken not merely a few 
nations but practically the race at large. In- 
credulity, horror, protest and apprehension were, it 
is safe to say, mingled in about equal parts in the 
mind of a citizen of the United States as nation 
after nation, autocracy, limited monarchy, republic, 
plunged into the whirlpool of the first of all world- 
wars. Perhaps, too, we Americans were tempted 
to indulge in egotistical reflections as we gazed, at 
a seemingly safe distance, upon the horrors that had 
befallen our fellowmen across the seas. Terminus, 
the rascally God of the Boundaries, had been re- 
markably kind to us at the outset of our national 
career by protecting our right and left flanks by 
the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. With our front 
and rear in no danger from stronger nations, we 
were placed geographically in a position which per- 
mitted us safely to pursue our experiment in self- 
government, our effort to prove to a doubting world 



MADE IN AMERICA 61 

that the voice of the People is the voice of God. The 
misfortunes of our neighbors are, if we are honest 
enough to admit the truth, among our most precious 
possessions. We Americans may be superior to the 
rest of the world but, after all, we are still men, not 
supermen, and subject to the weaknesses of human 
nature. With all Europe and parts of Asia and 
Africa at war the fact that the United States, alone 
of all the great powers of the world, maintained 
a neutral position seemed to each individual Ameri- 
can to testify to the inherent superiority of our 
ideals, our institutions and our national conduct; to 
put us, as it were, in the position of a thorough- 
going gentleman surrounded by bloody-minded row- 
dies. What Terminus had done in our behalf in 
respect to boundaries we had acknowledged by tak- 
ing advantage of our "splendid isolation" to be- 
come the one nation on earth to which, when a world- 
war broke forth, the combatants might turn even- 
tually for mediation, for an impartial umpire who 
should do at the end of the war of wars what he 
should have been called upon to do before that war 
began. 

This feeling of superiority upon the part of 
Americans was intensified by the efforts of the bel- 
ligerents, sometimes officially, sometimes unofficially, 
to plead their respective cases at the bar of our na- 
tion, admitting by this procedure that the friend- 



62 THE GAME OF EMPIKES 

ship of the United States had become, by a com- 
bination of tragic circumstances, the greatest prize 
that could be won by any one of the warring 
powers. The administration in control at Washing- 
ton had been busily engaged in turning our nation's 
swords into plowshares and our spears into prun- 
ing-hooks. We had been entering into peace treaties 
with many countries, both great and small, with 
a calm and splendid idealism that was blind to the 
menace of Armageddon and had eyes only for the 
millennium. Nero fiddled while Rome was burning, 
and our Secretary of State delivered a lecture upon 
the Prince of Peace while Europe mobilized her 
stupendous armies. Our hearts and our money went 
out to stricken Belgium, while Japan seized islands 
in the far East from Germany within easy striking 
distance of the Philippines. We were forced to 
submit to a war tax because Gavrilo Prinzip had 
murdered an archduke, but there still remained those 
among us, thousands and hundreds of thousands, 
who continued to nourish the feeling of national 
egotism referred to above, and to cherish the belief 
that it was our country's destiny in the future al- 
ways to make peace, never war. Mukden, Lule 
Burgas, the Marne and the Aisne had no message 
for the majority of our countrymen, no warning 
more timely than could be found in the battles of 
Julius Csesar. But the Balkan wars overthrew the 



MADE IiN" AMERICA 63 

balance of power in Europe and the war of wars 
is now destroying the equilibrium of the world. A 
neutral nation truly wise to-day would be engaged 
in sharpening its weapons of offense and defense 
instead of signing scraps of paper that, as ex-Presi- 
dent Roosevelt has so ably shown, are, with no sanc- 
tion of force behind them, worth "literally and ab- 
solutely nothing in any time of serious crisis." 

The above is not written in any spirit of depreci- 
ation of the fundamental ideals upon which our 
American civilization is based. Kever before have 
our underlying national principles appeared more 
admirable, more worthy of every sacrifice for their 
preservation, than in these dark days when the utter 
collapse of democracy in Europe and the brutal 
dominance of hereditary autocracy shock us with 
the revelation that mankind's struggle toward higher 
planes of being has been less successful than we 
Americans had so fondly believed. In its last analy- 
sis Americanism, as Washington and Lincoln un- 
derstood and interpreted it, is to-day shining like 
a good deed in a naughty world. The faith of our 
forefathers, who denied the divine right of kings, 
and of our fathers, who cut the cancer of human 
slavery from the bosom of our republic, in the basic 
principles underlying our American governmental 
fabric is as strong in American hearts in the twen- 
tieth century as it was in the eighteenth or the nine- 



G4 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

teenth. It has been the fashion among our native 
sociological and historical writers of late years to 
deny this proposition, to assert that plutocracy has 
destroyed the devotion of our people to the old 
ideals of democracy, that the power of concentrated 
wealth has rendered the world's greatest experiment 
in government by the people a disastrous failure. 
But the present attitude of the American nation 
toward the European conflict, the horror that is felt 
in this country at the fact that this war of wars 
could have been precipitated without the consent of 
those most closely affected, namely, the people of 
the various warring nations, that hereditary autoc- 
racy could decide the course, at the greatest crisis 
in the history of the race, which civilization must 
take is proof positive that the Americanism we have 
been taught to revere is still, despite the assertions 
of carpers and pessimists, a living, potent force, 
an influence that may yet save the world from the 
recurring catastrophes that result from autocratic 
usurpation. Not by fasting and prayer and prat- 
ing of the blessings of peace, however, can Ameri- 
can democracy fulfill its lofty mission to an abused 
and suffering race, but by strengthening itself with 
those material weapons which, soulless as they are, 
can turn the scale at great crises in favor of Progress 
or Reaction, Freedom or Tyranny, human Hope or 
human Despair. 



MADE IN AMERICA 65 

And these weapons to which I refer, like the ideals 
for and against which they are now being wielded 
by embattled millions, were made in America. The 
democratic creed to which we Americans confoim 
has been outraged by despotic power in Europe 
and that very power is employing for its preserva- 
tion those modem engines of destruction that owe 
their origin to American ingenuity. As a nation 
we resent and deny the bald, uncompromising as- 
sertions of Treitschke and von Bernhardi that war 
is both moral and necessary and that only by and 
through war can a nation fulfill its highest possible 
destiny. Nevertheless, we must as a people bear the 
blame, if blame there be, for providing the warring 
nations of to-day with their most effective weapons. 
Mars, who seems to have, like Terminus, a grim 
sense of humor, has found in a democracy, theoret- 
ically and practically antagonistic to war as an in- 
stitution, the inventive genius that has made his 
twentieth century activities as a destructive deity 
more horrible and devastating than at any former 
time. 

Government by the people is no more a Yankee 
notion than is the super-dreadnought. The propo- 
sition that all men are created free and equal is 
not more distinctly American than is the revolver 
or the machine-gTin. The contention that "the 
square deal" should prevail in diplomacy was made 



66 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

in America, as were the submarine and the aero- 
plane. This nation holds that the arguments ad- 
vanced to sustain the claim of German militarism 
to public approval are fallacious, but the smooth- 
bore 42-centimeter howitzer bj which modern forti- 
fications have been rendered obsolete is a product 
of American inventiveness. On land, on sea, in the 
air and under the water the war of wars, decreed by 
kings and ministers hating American ideals, is being 
fought with American weapons. Treitschke, Bern- 
hardi and their royal master, William II, would find 
but little to admire in the achievements of our great- 
est writers, philanthropists, statesmen, poets and 
educators, but to Colt, Gatling, Winchester, Hotch- 
kiss, Wright, Holland, Maxim and Ericsson the Ger- 
man war lords grant their tribute of admiration. Is 
not a Maxim "silencer" of more value to the cause 
of civilization than Edison's diamond-disc phono- 
graph ? Let Yankee genius put music into packages 
if it so wills, but where it shines brightest to-day in 
the eyes of German civilizers is where the howitzers 
thunder or the submarines dive or the aeroplanes 
soar and terrify. 

It is not difficult to understand, as we go over 
the list of American inventors, from Robert Fulton 
to Wilbur Wright, how easy it has been for a peo- 
ple not devoted to the creed of militarism to trust 
to the ingenuity of our inventors to save us from 



MADE m AMEKICA 67 

disaster in the time of need. We seem to take 
it for granted that whenever we may be threatened 
by a Merrimac the good god Mars will send us a 
Monitor. Is not a nation sufficiently inventive to 
provide a world at war with practically all the weap- 
ons it employs in its ghastly game of human butchery 
safe from the perils that menace less highly gifted 
peoples ? "Coast defenses," said the eloquent Kepre- 
sentative Lumpkin, of the Freshwater, Ind., dis- 
trict on the floor of the House recently, "are, as the 
tariff used to be, a local issue. They might pos- 
sibly be needed to defend our Eastern summer 
resorts at some time in the remote future, but such 
a contingency does not warrant us in making an 
appropriation at this depressing crisis, when the 
high cost of living goes hand in hand with a disas- 
trous shrinkage in the pork barrel. I assure the 
nation, and especially my own constituents, greatly 
in need of a new postoffice, that if danger should 
threaten this country from abroad we are possessed 
of sufficient ingenuity to defend ourselves from its 
encroachments. In fact, I may tell the American 
public, in the strictest confidence, of course, that a 
fellow-townsman of mine has invented a high ex- 
plosive that could blow an enemy's battle-fleet into 
atoms at the touch of an electric button. This ex- 
plosive, I am glad to be able to state, will render 
our enormous coast-line absolutely unapproachable. 



68 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

and will enable this House hereafter to confine its 
attention wholly to the pressing needs of our in- 
terior towns, cities and waterways.'^ 

In the chaotic welter of ideas and deeds that are 
now distracting our American minds, fevered as 
they cannot help but be by a world-conflict whose 
iconoclasm can only be surmised, one fact stands 
out clear and incontrovertible: If German Militar- 
ism is right American ideals are wrong, if our 
ideals are right German Militarism is wrong. And 
from this fact springs a conclusion that is unavoid- 
able, namely, that national ideals, whether they be 
reactionary or progressive, depend for their develop- 
ment upon strength and become but a mockery 
through weakness. Belgium cherished certain ideals 
— and they were sufficiently high and praiseworthy 
— ^but to-day to the millions of starving Belgians the 
need for food has become the all-important feature 
of existence, and the lofty dreams of a high-minded 
and heroic people have vanished in the smoke of 
burning cities. 

That "government of the people, for the people, 
by the people" should not perish from the earth 
the price of life demanded by Gettysburg had to 
be paid. In other words, the noblest ideals that 
the soul of a nation can cherish may require, at great 
crises, the employment of those foul, diabolical, de- 
testable weapons of war that destroy human life 



MADE m AMERICA 69 

by machinery and are now making a human slaugh- 
ter-house of Europe. This is essentially different 
from the basic proposition upon which Treitschke 
and Bernhardi rest their contention that war is of 
itself moral and uplifting. "Even victorious wars 
can only be justified," said Prince Bismarck, "when 
they are forced upon a nation," a remark for mak- 
ing which the modern German militarists have 
found it hard to forgive the man of Blood and 
Iron. But it is advisable for Americans to reflect, 
at this appalling crisis in human history, that even 
justifiable war, forced upon us against our will, can 
not be waged victoriously unless we have had the 
foresight and energy to prepare for the same kind 
of unpleasant contingency that has recently over- 
taken the neutral states of Luxemburg, Belgium 
and China. 

For be it known and carefully considered in this 
country that, though the war of wars is being fought 
with American weapons, it was precipitated by 
the antagonism cherished by European reaction- 
aries for the ideals upon which our institutions 
rest. Bernhardi frankly voices the fear and de- 
testation nourished by Gemian Militarism for Ger- 
man Social-Democracy. He says: "Germany has 
become an industrial and trading nation; almost 
the whole of the growing increase of the popula- 
tion finds work and employment in this sphere. 



70 THE GAME OF EMPIKES 

Agriculture has more and more lost its leading 
position in the economic life of the people. The 
artisan class has thus become a power in our State. 
It is organized in trade unions, and has politically 
fallen under the influence of the international so- 
cial democracy. It is hostile to the national class 
distinction, and strains every nerve to undermine 
the existing power of the State." Germany, from 
the point of view of the militarists, was nourishing 
a viper in her bosom, a viper that was growing 
stronger and more menacing through inspiration de- 
rived from the startling fact that under democratic 
institutions the United States has become a world- 
power. American ideals transplanted to Germany 
threatened to overthrow eventually the Hohenzol- 
lems and the system upon which their power rested. 
As Bernhardi shows, the most effective method of 
checking the growing influence of democratic ten- 
dencies in Germany was through the consolidating 
influences of a foreign war. It was wiser, was it 
not, more patriotic, to turn Krupp guns and Zep- 
pelins against the English, French or Russians than 
to use them to mow down German revolutionists ? 
And if German militarism must perish in the end, 
certainly destruction from outside is to be preferred 
to annihilation from an internal explosion! 

War is, of course, an affair of the physical world. 
It is waged by calculations based upon resources 



MADE IN AMEKICA 71 

in men, money, guns, ships, forts and other ma- 
terial necessaries of conflict. But underlying and 
responsible for all wars is a clash of ideas. The 
cave-man fought his antagonist because he was im- 
bued with the idea that in preempting a certain 
hole in the ground he had established a property 
right that was to be defended even at the cost of 
life. His gloomy den represented to him what "a 
place in the sun" means to a modem nation. His 
predatory opponent was under the influence of the 
idea of expansion, the idea that a neighbor's cave 
was to be captured, if possible, at the earliest op- 
portune moment. And each in his own way, the 
cave-man on guard and the cave-man aggressive, 
was a patriot, for the patriot both defends his own 
or adds to it when occasion serves. War, then — 
any war — ^has both a material and an immaterial 
basis. It is a clash of conflicting weapons and of 
conflicting ideas. Admitting this, we may go fur- 
ther and assert that study of any war in the his- 
tory of the race will convince us that, in the last 
analysis, one combatant represented Reaction and 
the other Progress. Especially is this true of the 
wars that have been waged on earth during the past 
few hundred years. 

In applying the test suggested above to the world- 
wide struggle that overwhelmed modern civilization 
in the fateful year 1914, it is not difficult to under- 



72 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

stand why we Americans, who have given to Mars 
his twentieth-century weapons, find that as a nation 
our sympathies, because of certain ideals that we 
have always cherished, go forth to one allied com- 
bination of warring peoples as against the other. 
Fear that the success of Germany, Austria and Tur- 
key against their numerous foes would involve pres- 
ently a menace to us has little, if anything, to do 
with the bias of America at this crisis. We are 
influenced, as a people in the forefront of modern 
aspirations, by the conviction that, despite certain 
curious contradictions in the present alignment of 
powers, the Triple Entente fights for Progress, 
while the new Triple Alliance, which has replaced, 
perforce, Italy by Turkey, wars in behalf of the 
forces of Reaction. And circumstances have com- 
bined, at this solemn hour in the life of mankind, 
to compel us to question the future and to ask in 
awed apprehension whether, like machine-guns and 
the practical ideals of true democracy, the salva- 
tion of civilization is to be made in America. 



CHAPTER IV 

COESICA VEKSUS GALILEE 



CHAPTEE IV 



COESIOA VEESrS GALII.EB 



Liege had punctured the tire of the German war- 
machine but in speed, power and general eiEciency 
that apparatus displayed marvelous superiority, 
through August, 1914, to anything of the kind the 
world had yet known. Invoking God, Glory and 
Guns, the Kaiser proceeded to punish Belgium for 
her audacity in defying an army that was in a hurry 
to perform its first important task in a complicated 
and daring adventure; upon the outcome of which, 
German writers had agreed, hung the issue of World- 
Power or N^ational Downfall. Bernhardi had said: 
"Since the tactical efficiency and the morale of the 
troops are chiefly shown in the offensive, and are 
then most needed, the necessary conclusion is that 
safety only lies in offensive warfare." At the out- 
set of the war of wars the German offensive ap- 
peared to vindicate the fondest hopes of a nation 
that had staked its destiny in that grewsome game 
whose dice are human bones. If Willie could even- 
tually do as well against Georgia and Nicky as he 

75 



76 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

was doing against Bertie, there was every reason 
to believe that Germany's well deserved place in 
the Sim would be presently attained. Mars seemed 
to be kindly disposed and Terminus was busy pre- 
paring new boundary stones colored red, white and 
black. But where lay the sympathies of Jupiter, 
the Omnipotent, no man yet knew. 

It is certainly amazing how censorious people 
habitually indifferent to the ideals of the military 
caste — the commercialized, uncultured, unimagina- 
tive Americans, for example — are toward certain 
methods of procedure that have characterized vic- 
torious armies since the earliest recorded times. 
Necessity, as our beloved von Bethmann-Hollweg 
said, knows no law and armies designed to hack their 
way through to the sunny side of boundary stones 
are not drilled on rules laid down in books of eti- 
quette. The mental attitude toward War of nations 
ignorant of the teachings of ISTietzsche, Treitschke 
and Bernhardi is childish in the extreme. The 
contention that an ancient, and universally admired 
and beloved, cathedral that gets into the way of 
the gun-fire of an army on the offensive should be 
spared for the sake of posterity shows to what 
extremes unpractical dreamers will go. That uni- 
versities, libraries and art galleries in cities whose 
inhabitants are reckless enough to defend their 
hearthstones are not to be destroyed, as a punish- 



CORSICA VERSUS GALILEE 77 

ment to patriotic barbarians and a warning to their 
possible emulators, is a proposition that could be 
defended only by carpers and critics grown ansemic 
through too much peace, prosperity and plutocracy. 
Why should Americans grumble at the damage done 
by Krupp guns to the cathedrals of Rheims and 
Antwerp ? Aren't they building their St. John 
the Divine, which will have nothing old or musty 
or outworn about it? Americans have long enjoyed 
a world-wide reputation for foresight and shrewd- 
ness. Can they not see that the destructiveness of 
German cannon may redound eventually to the ben- 
efit of American architects? 

How squeamish Democracy makes a nation ! The 
tales that came to America of the sack of Louvain 
sent a thrill of horror through a people whose only 
method of recent years for preserving the manlier 
qualities has consisted in watching college football 
games. Many of the most brilliant German con- 
troversialists endeavored patiently and cleverly to 
show the too-sensitive Americans how unjust it is 
to hold an army beset by snipers, and much behind 
its time schedule, to a strict accoimtability for the 
actions of its units, but what can be hoped for in 
the way of reason and justice from a people too 
stupid to admit that war is of itself inherently 
moral and praiseworthy ? 

The German triumphs during the first month of 



78 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

the war of wars seemed to indicate that Don Quixote 
would have a comparatively easy task in overthrow- 
ing the windmills. He who, clad in shining ar- 
mor, had set out to carry German culture to the 
dark regions of the earth that they might he changed 
into sun-kissed abiding places for a superior race 
had made, despite the misguided efforts of the cour- 
ageous Belgians to defend their lares and penates, 
marked progress toward ultimate success during the 
unforgettable month of August, 1914. On the 4th 
the first shots at Liege had sent their sinister echoes 
around the world, aghast at the tragic possibilities 
those shots threatened to the race at large. Four 
weeks later Belgian, French and English armies 
were retreating over the fields of Flanders, Picardy, 
Artois and Champagne, the Kaiser's troops, mena- 
cing gray masses, were on the Marne and Seine, and 
on the boulevards of Paris could be heard the dis- 
tant thunder of Krupp guns at Meaux and Lagny. 
In every comer of the earth men thought only, 
talked only of war. The ease and celerity with 
which Germany had overrun France in 1870 was re- 
called, and to the world at large it appeared, at 
the beginning of September, 1914, that history was 
displaying an inclination, as it does now and again, 
to repeat itself. It had taken only a little over six 
weeks after the declaration of war in 1870 for the 
Germans to put Napoleon III hors-du-comhat at 



CORSICA VERSUS GALILEE 79 

Sedan. In 1866 Prussia had defeated Austria in 
a month and a half. It was apparent that German 
soldiers of the twentieth century were as lively on 
their feet as had been their fathers and their grand- 
fathers. The famous "goose-step" is a method of 
exercise that hardens the muscles needed for for- 
ward marching, and is highly to be recommended 
for armies that must plant the seeds of culture 
in the West in a hurry if they are to get back to 
the East in time to defend the kitchen-garden of 
the higher civilization from the inroads of Russian 
barbarians. 

Don Quixote, then, had put his first windmill 
out of the fight, and the first week of September 
found Berlin jubilant and London and Paris de- 
pressed and apprehensive. The French Government 
had fled to Bordeaux. Again had it been demon- 
strated to the eyes of a world tending more and 
more toward democratic modes of thought that at 
the outset of great wars autocracy possesses marked 
advantages over republican institutions. The ma- 
chinery of popular government, in English, French, 
Swiss or American form, has not been designed to 
support the sweeping proposition that War is in- 
herently moral and uplifting and, in the nature of 
things, can never become obsolete. To the peo- 
ples living under republican forms of procedure, 
armies and navies seem to be, at the best, necessary 



80 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

evils rather than weapons to be used wantonly for 
national aggrandizement. But if democratic sys- 
tems hamper nations in the earlier stages of war, 
there seems to be abundant reason to believe that 
they possess staying qualities that should have been, 
at the greatest of all world crises, a warning to 
hereditary autocracy, upon which, now as in past 
ages, the teachings of history seem to make but 
little impression. 

The goose-step, the mass formation, and Krupp 
guns had placed Belgiiun at the mercy of the Kaiser 
in the first month of the war of wars and had en- 
abled him to rush an army under General von Kluck 
to the very outskirts of Paris. The world held its 
breath in amazement. The maddest military pro- 
ject ever devised by experts in grand strategy 
seemed for the moment to be not beyond the bounds 
of possible accomplishment. With Paris captured, 
its conquerors could hurry home to Germany to 
hurl back the oncoming Russians from the sacred 
boundaries that show where real culture ends and 
barbarism begins. 

"Weltmacht oder Niedergang," World-dominion 
or Downfall hung poised in the balance, Germany's 
future at stake upon the outcome of Von Kluck's 
daring movement against the French capital. In 
five weeks after her declaration of war against Rus- 
sia, Germany had overrun Belgium and was knock- 



COESICA VERSUS GALILEE 81 

ing peremptorily at the gates of Paris. Her states- 
men, in endeavoring to justify the violation of 
Belgian neutrality, had practically admitted that 
Germany's one chance to perform the miracle she 
had attempted was to triumph decisively at the very 
outset of the war. The Germans must destroy the 
military strength of France, occupy Paris and put 
the French Republic to ransom, and then transfer 
their armies, flushed with triumphs in the West, 
from the Seine to the ISTiemen; to do to Nicky's 
troops what they had done to the forces of "one 
Poincare, a Frenchman." And here, among all 
the strange contradictions and amazing inconsist- 
encies that have been begotten by the war of wars, 
we look at this moment upon the most astonishing 
phenomenon. Both the invading Germans and the 
French who retreated before them have deified the 
same earth-born genius, the Corsican, Napoleon, 
who boasted at St. Helena that neither disaster nor 
death could destroy his persistent influence in the 
modem world! 

"In Europe as a whole, in the twentieth century," 
says the late J. A. Cramb, Professor of Modem 
History at Queen's College, London, Eng., "two 
great spirit forces contend for men's allegiance — 
Napoleon and Christ. The one, the representative 
of life-renunciation, places the reconciliation of 
life's discords and the solution of its problems in 



82 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

a tranquil but nebulous region beyond the grave; 
the other, the asserter of earth and earth's glories, 
disregardful of any life beyond the grave, finds 
life's supreme end in heroisms and the doing of 
great things, and seeks no immortality except the 
immortality of renown, and even of that he is 
slightly contemptuous. To Napoleon the end of 
life is power and the imposing of his will upon 
the wills of other men. Like Achilles or like Ajax, 
ever to be the first and to outshine all others is his 
confessed ambition. The law, on the other hand, 
which Christ laid upon men appears to be the law 
of self-effacement. The true Christist toils but for 
others; he prays but for others. He suffers for 
them; he dies for them. * * * In Europe, I 
say, this conflict between Christ and IsTapoleon for 
the mastery over the minds of men is the most 
significant spiritual phenomenon of the twentieth 
century. You meet with it in England and in 
America, as in Austria and Spain. You meet with 
it even in Italy. In Russia Tolstoi's furious at- 
tacks are a proof of its increasing sway. * * * 
In the writings of Nietzsche and of the followers 
of Nietzsche they study the same Napoleonism 
transforming the principles of everyday life, breath- 
ing a new spirit into ethics, transfiguring the tedi- 
ous, half-hypocritical morality of an earlier gen- 



CORSICA VERSUS GALILEE 83 

eration. * * * Corsica, in a word, lias con- 
quered Galilee." 

Had the Germans seriously bombarded Paris in 
September, 1914, it is safe to say that l^apoleon's 
tomb would have fared better than the cathedral 
of ISTotre Dame. That Corsica had conquered Gali- 
lee was made evident to the delegates to the Church 
Peace Conference at Constance, Germany, in 
August. Eighty-five delegates, representing various 
Christian denominations, had managed to reach 
Constance from England, Germany, Switzerland, 
Denmark, Sweden, Holland, ITorway, Bulgaria, the 
United States and France at the most inopportune 
moment for their worthy purpose in the blood- 
stained history of a pugnacious race. The annies 
of Europe were mobilizing and it became necessary 
for the conference to adjourn hastily from Constance 
to London. Before leaving Constance, however, the 
Christian Pacificists sent a message to the rulers 
of Europe and the President of the United States, 
running as follows: "The Conference of members 
of Christian Churches, representing twelve coun- 
tries and thirty confessions, assembled at Constance 
to promote friendly relations between nations, sol- 
emnly appeals to Christian Rulers to avert a war 
between millions of men among whom friendship 
and common interests have been steadily growing, 
and thereby save from disaster Christian civiliza- 



84 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

tion and assert the power of the Christian spirit in 
human affairs." 

The official account of the sequel to this appeal 
is grimly humorous. "Under a safe conduct from 
the Kaiser, who had conveyed by the Assistant 
Court Preacher his interest in the Conference, and 
with the special protection of the Grand Duchess 
of Baden, the delegates passed through the line of 
bayonets by day and the lurid glare of searchlights 
sweeping the heavens for hostile airships by night, 
leaving Flushing just an hour before the German 
warships menaced the Channel, passed safely over 
the mines in the Thames, to continue the Confer- 
ence in London, where the English delegates were 
saddened by the news that their own land was at 
war." The European rulers to whom the Christian 
pacificists had appealed in behalf of peace were 
at that very moment mobilizing Mohammedans, 
Buddhists, Shinto-worshipers, Sun-worshipers, Fire- 
worshipers, Devil-worshipers, Atheists, Infidels, 
warriors of every creed antagonistic to Chris- 
tianity, in their mighty effort to prove to a world 
given to self-deception that the late Professor Cramb 
was right when he asserted that Corsica had con- 
quered Galilee. "Had I remained in the East," 
said ISTapoleon, "I would probably have founded 
an Empire, like Alexander, by going to Mecca as 
a pilgrim, where I would have bowed the knee and 



CORSICA VERSUS GALILEE 85 

offered prayers — but only if it had been worth 
while!" 

To the Hotel des Invalides, where rest the re- 
mains of the deified Corsican who had dethroned 
Christ in the hearts of those who control the des- 
tiny of Europe, came the echoes of Von Kluck's 
gims in those hot, oppressive days of early Sep- 
tember. The spirit of ISTapoleon, hovering near a 
tomb that has become to the modern world what 
the Holy Sepulchre was to former generations, in- 
dulged, we may well believe, in mocking medita- 
tions, marveling at the fatuous imbecilities of hu- 
man nature, the human nature he so well understood 
and, in his heart of hearts, so thoroughly despised. 
The Prussians are at the gates of Paris! To a 
visitor at St. Helena in 1818 Napoleon had re- 
marked : "You are examining that big clock ? It was 
the great Frederick's alarum; I took it from Pots- 
dam — that was all Prussia was worth." Is it an- 
other Frederick the Great, or merely a William the 
Imitator, whose cannon could so easily drop a bomb 
upon the sepulchre of the deified Corsican? And 
again, as so often in his amazing career on earth, 
ISTapoleon in the first week of September, 1914, 
would have asked, "Where are the English?" The 
English he hated, and who destroyed him, are they 
still, a century after Waterloo, interfering with the 
well-laid plans of an autocratic conqueror who has 



86 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

had the vision, as had "the godlike Corsican," of 
■universal dominion ? Where are the English ? Can 
it be that they are on Von Kluck's flank, that a 
German capture of Paris, seemingly practicable on 
September 2, could be rendered, through English 
valor, impossible by September 9? "Where are 
the English? Does that detestable little island of 
theirs, which, but for the blundering of that naval 
imbecile Villeneuve, I, l^apoleon, could have over- 
run and destroyed, still dominate haK the world, 
blocking at great crises the projects that come now 
and then through the centuries to the soul of genius ? 
I did my best to rid the world of those stubborn, 
blundering, barbarous English! To my Vice- Ad- 
miral Latouche-Treville I wrote in July, 1804 : 'We 
have 1,800 gunboats and cutters carrying 120,000 
men and 10,000 horses between Etaples, Boulogne, 
Wimereux and Ambleteuse. If we are masters of 
the Channel for six hours, we are masters of the 
world!'" 

"If we are masters of Paris six weeks from now," 
William II. had said in the first week of August, 
1914, "we are masters of the world." But I^a- 
poleon never dominated the Channel for five min- 
utes, much less his necessary six hours, and in the 
first week of September, 1914, the German Kaiser 
saw whatever chance he may have had for seizing 



CORSICA VERSUS GALILEE 87 

the capital of France slip from his feverish grasp. 
To the Kaiser, as to ISTapoleon, the English had been 
the blighting influence that had darkened a dream 
of universal dominion just at the moment when the 
elusive goal to which the souls of great conquerors 
have always striven seemed to be within the clutch 
of genius. 

Von Kluck! Immortal name! When posterity 
shall read the tragic story of a Kaiser and a mili- 
tary clique who endeavored to hack their way 
through insuperable obstacles, spilling on their way 
the blood of millions of men, in the effort to ob- 
tain that world dominance that was denied to Alex- 
ander and I^apoleon, and must forever be unattain- 
able to an individual or a nation, to Von Kluck 
must be paid the tribute of admiration and sym- 
pathy. The football player who makes a fifty-yard 
dash for a touchdown is not to be deprived of the 
glory due to him if his opponents block the kick 
for goal. Von Kluck's guns had thundered in Sep- 
tember in the ears of Parisians appalled at the 
rapidity of movement of a mighty and seemingly 
irresistible foe. The roar of his cannon appeared 
to presage the final and complete triumph of the 
Kaiser's claim to world-power, the coming of a new 
Heaven and a new Earth. But the crash of Von 
Kluck's guns on the outskirts of Paris ushered in 



88 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

not a German millennium on earth, but rumbled in 
sullen echoes around the planet as a reluctant salute 
to a dying hope, a lost cause, the high-water mark in 
an impossible project that was doomed to failure 
from its inception. 

^'Germany has only one enemy. One nation 
blocks the way," says Professor Cramb. "That na- 
tion is England. Not Russia or Austria, unless 
secondarily, not France, unless incidentally, is Ger- 
many's enemy: the enemy of enemies is England." 
If permanently, as the ages pass, Corsica conquers 
Galilee will it be because England, unfaithful to 
her highest mission, betrays Galilee? Germany 
hates England because to-day, as a century ago, the 
Corsican god, whose worship is the worship of power, 
sees that still the most glorious symbol of war to 
which Prussia can point is the great Frederick's 
alarum-clock. But are the ideals of Germany and 
England fundamentally the same? 

Assuredly we Americans are not willing to ad- 
mit that, beyond all peradventure, Corsica has really 
conquered Galilee; that the gospel of Treitschke 
rather than that of Tolstoi, the creed of Militarism, 
not the Sermon on the Mount, are the dominant 
spiritual forces that determine, and shall continue 
to determine, the course of modem endeavor. And 
we are, as a people, inclined to believe that our 
English cousins, in offering their lives upon the bat- 



CORSICA VERSUS GALILEE 89 

tlefields of Europe in defense of the sacredness of 
international treaties have given convincing proof 
that not Napoleon but Christ reigns in their hearts 
to-day. 



CHAPTER V 



PAL-aEOLITIIIC SURVIVALS 



CHAPTER V 



PALEOLITHIC SURVIVALS 



James Geikie, the noted Scotch anthropologist, is 
authority for the statement that man has existed 
in Europe for something like a million years. In 
the earliest stages of his earthly career the Euro- 
pean was little more than a beast of prey. A fos- 
silized jawbone discovered seventy-eight feet below 
the surface of the sand at Mauer, near Heidelberg, 
Germany, has enabled scientists to visualize the pre- 
Adamite who lived and fought and died between 
the first and second glacial periods. The man of 
Mauer possessed an ape-like jaw, massive and with 
little if any chin, and powerful teeth. The leading 
characteristic suggested by his distinctly unpleas- 
ant outward seeming is pugnacity. "Because of the 
perishability of man," says a reviewer of Dr. 
Geikie's latest book, "it is only rarely that we may 
find any part of the man himself surviving from 
such remote antiquity. Our chief reliance for the 
establishment of the successive races of the man of 
pre-history must rest upon the records which man 

93 



94 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

has left more enduring than himself, the fragments 
of rock which he has shaped to his use." 

From the relics of palaeolithic man discovered 
by anthropologists two generalizations regarding pre- 
historic Europeans have been made possible, one 
that the man of Mauer and his descendants were 
fighters, the other that they were artists. Says the 
authority on this subject quoted above: "So far re- 
moved from us are early Pleistocene times that our 
sympathetic interest in the life of palseolithic man 
cannot but be faint. And yet he was very human: 
doubtless at the outset of his career a bestially sel- 
fish and merciless savage, but gradually developing 
finer traits with the passing of the ages. It is not 
without emotion that we look at the beautiful art 
work of the Magdalenian reindeer hunter. And 
when we remember the conditions under which he 
lived — exposed to a severe climate and the attacks 
of many formidable wild beasts, his home a dark 
cave or rude rock shelter — we may well be aston- 
ished at his attainments as an engraver, a sculptor 
and an animal painter. With the simplest of tools 
and appliances his best efforts rival, if they do not 
sometimes excel, those of our modern art schools 
and must ever be a marvel to critics who may have 
nourished the belief that such attainments are only 
possible in a civilized community." 

Palaeolithic man, then, was devoted to both Art 



PALEOLITHIC SURVIVALS 95 

and War. He appears to have been lacking in a 
sense of humor as he gave himself up with primi- 
tive passion to bloodshed at one time and at an- 
other to the pursuit of culture, but his stone vsreap- 
ons and impressive paintings prove that he was 
sufficiently many-sided to invent, in time, the mys- 
terious thing that we moderns call laughter. 
Whether the man of Mauer poked fun at his battle- 
axes or his pictures we can never know, but there 
must have come a time in the career of prehistoric 
Europeans when some progTessive cave-dweller 
gazed at his crude weapons and paintings and 
chuckled to himself, the first of all humorists, at 
the incongruity between a blood-stained stone 
hatchet and an uplifting mural decoration. 

We can in imagination go forward a few hundred 
thousand years and see with our mind's eye some 
Geikie of the remote future making excavations in 
what is now called Belgium. Would he not have 
much the same experience that has come to the great 
Scotch anthropologist of to-day in his investigations 
into the life and habits of palseolithic man? He 
would come upon fragments of marvelous paintings, 
remnants of splendid temples — evidently religious 
in origin — perhaps some priceless tome preserved 
from decay by some curious chemico-physical chance, 
or mayhap a quaint gargoyle or an equestrian sta- 
tue or the tip of some splendid spire that once 



96 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

pointed heavenward. And in the same stratum of 
sand, piled high through thousands of centuries, 
he would find the remains of ingenious weapons of 
death, rifled gun-barrels or a smooth-bore howitzer, 
with here and there, perhaps, small iron crosses, 
causing scientific speculation and controversy. If 
the anthropologist of a remote to-morrow could be 
able to identify these relics of Art and War as be- 
longing to the twentieth century of what was known 
as "the Christian Era," he would undoubtedly in- 
augurate a world-wide campaign of excavation that 
would be rewarded with the upturning of art 
treasures and war weapons — as prehistoric to him as 
are the drawings and stone axes of palaeolithic man 
to us — from beneath the sand deposits in various 
parts of the earth. And to him would come the 
same conclusion regarding the man of to-day that 
we have reached concerning the man of Mauer, 
namely, that he was both bloody-minded and artis- 
tic — and utterly devoid of a sense of humor. 

We Americans are horrified at the world-tragedy 
that succeeded the assassination of an Austrian 
Archduke in the early summer of 1914. Perhaps 
the grim humor of the cataclysm intensifies the 
shock we have received, through the keenness of our 
native sense of the ridiculous. In a way it is laugh- 
able to see Russia and Japan, so recently at each 
other's throats, lined up as allies to England in an 



PALEOLITHIC SURVIVALS 97 

effort to destroy England's great rival. Can it be 
possible that Russia and Japan really love England ? 
"With the help of the Almighty," announced the 
Ottoman Embassy at Rome on ISTovember 9, "the 
Turkish army crossed the Egyptian frontier yester- 
day." Is the Sultan's Almighty the same deity to 
which his ally the Kaiser so often appeals? Only 
a century ago on the battlefields of Belgium, Eng- 
land and Prussia warred together against France. 
In this war of wars Mars, the most venerable of 
all practical jokers, has joined France and England 
together against Prussia. With such amazing in- 
congruities confronting us, as we survey the vast 
field of twentieth century warfare, we strive to find 
some philosophical point of view, some theoretical 
line of cleavage, some mental and psychological clash 
explaining, or at least making less inexplicable, 
this puzzling world-wide conflict which has aligned 
the greater and lesser powers of the world after a 
manner that seems to make a mockery of history 
and to furnish justification for the laughter of the 
gods. Strangely enough, we can find the enlight- 
ening vantage-point which we are seeking in the 
cave of the pala3olithic man. 

Individuals and nations to-day can be analyzed 
and judged according to their respective attitudes 
toward the rival claims made by prehistoric man to 
our regard. Is the early European cave-dweller 



98 THE GAME OF EMPIKES 

more to be admired for his stone-ax and his powers 
in wielding it than for his amazingly clever achieve- 
ments as a sculptor and draughtsman ? The answer 
that a man or a people makes to that query is de- 
terminative and enlightening. It is the question 
that practically every nation on earth was forced 
to answer during the tragic year 1914, a year that 
found the himian race divided into two armed 
camps, in the one the idealists of the world, demand- 
ing liberty for the individual and testifying to their 
belief in the light that never was on land or sea; 
in the other the materialists, the militarists, voicing 
the claims of the State as against those of the in- 
dividual and rendering their own arguments ridicu- 
lous by themselves endeavoring to turn a man into 
a god. Treitschke and Bernhardi versus Goethe 
and Heine ! Corsica against Galilee ! The cave- 
man who made hatchets reincarnated in the twen- 
tieth century to fight to the death against the cave- 
man who made pictures ! 

John Cowper Powys, in his brilliant reply to 
Miinsterberg, entitled "The War and Culture," elo- 
quently says: "This terrible war, caused primarily 
by the natural egoism of races, has become, by the 
logic of events, and by the invisible pressure of 
the system of things, a war of Ideas. The Idea of 
Germany is to force upon the world, by means of 
an omnipotent and irresistible State-machine, a cer- 



PALEOLITHIC SURVIVALS 99 

tain hard, scientific, unimaginative, and efficient 
culture. The Idea of the Allies is to protect the 
individual against the State, the little nations 
against the empires, and the drama, color, pas- 
sion, beauty and tradition of the various races of 
the earth, against a monotonous and murderous uni- 
formity!" There is variety in the mural sketches 
of the cave-man, only "murderous uniformity" in 
his stone-axes. The Idea of Germany and the Idea 
of the Allies are both of them as old as palaeolithic 
man, and through countless ages they have been, in 
some form or another, in deadly conflict. But never 
before has the struggle between them involved all 
mankind. When Armageddon has been fought to 
a finish it will never have to be refought. The 
time has come upon earth when Idealism or Ma- 
terialism must alone dominate the planet. In the 
generations to come is it not imaginable that a race- 
religion more sublime than any mankind has yet 
known will turn the city of Liege in Belgium into 
a Mecca for devout pilgrims? 

With such reflections in our minds, is it not in- 
teresting to turn from the theoretical to the prac- 
tical, to gaze at the battle of the Marne, one of the 
world's decisive struggles, with eyes whose vision 
has been clarified by a glance at the fundamental 
issue involved in the deadly conflict that, as now 
seems apparent, destroyed for all time Germany's 



100 THE GAME OF EMPIKES 

magnificent but mad project to dominate the world ? 
On the battle-line of the Marne the cohorts of Ma- 
terialism were confronted by the cohorts of Idealism 
and the defeat of the former rejoiced the hearts 
of the vast majority of Americans, to whom the 
inauguration of a world-war by the Militarists of 
Germany appeared to be the most colossal crime of 
all the ages. 

As to what, from a military standpoint, hap- 
pened at the Marne on September 6 and 1, the 
words of Mr. Frank H. Simonds, author of ''The 
Great War," a book dealing brilliantly with the 
earlier campaigns of the fateful autumn of 1914, 
are clarifying and tell, clearly and concisely, the 
story of a defeat that was to put the Kaiser's armies, 
designed to wage offensive warfare, practically on 
the defensive for many disastrous months: 

"To use a homely figure, the Allied left from 
Mons to the gates of Paris had been in the posi- 
tion of a closing door, it hung on the barrier 
fortresses to the east, swinging closed on Paris. 
General von Kluck had endeavored to put a foot be- 
tween the door and the casing before it closed. By 
September 3 the crack was far too narrow, in fact 
the door had swung closed and the great envelop- 
ing movement, by the narrowest of margins, it 
appeared, had completely failed. As von Kluck ad- 
vanced, the armies of von Buelow, von Hansen, 



PALEOLITHIC SUEVIVALS 101 

the Grand Duke Albrecht, and the Crown Prince 
had kept pace, while the Allied armies facing them 
had given way, not because of the pressure of the 
armies in front of them, but because the with- 
drawal of the Anglo-French on their left exposed 
their flank. 'Now the left stood on Paris, the right 
on the barrier fortresses, the center south of the 
Mame river on a slightly curving line passing 
through Montmirail, Sezanne, LaFere, Champe- 
noise. Camp de ]\Iailly, Vitry-le-Frangois, to Re- 
vigny on the Ornain, just north of Bar-le-Duc. 
ISTorth of this point Verdun and the barrier 
fortresses above Toul were now half surrounded by 
the Crown Prince's army coming West by Stenay, 
and had been left to their own resources. 

"Between Vitry and Paris the railway distance 
is 127 miles; the front of the Allies was rather 
shorter. On this line they had concentrated an 
army subsequently estimated at 1,100,000. In ad- 
dition the garrison at Paris counted 500,000. 
Against this the Germans did not have above 900,- 
000. To succeed it was necessary to throw their 
full weight upon one point. They selected the center 
and in the next few days the whole drive was be- 
tween Sezanne and Vitry, centering at Camp de 
Mailly, happily for the French the field on which 
for years their artillery had been tested and their 
artillerists practiced, l^owhere else in all France 



102 THE GAME OE EMPIEES 

could their shooting be expected to be half so good. 

"For the Germans there had been several possi- 
bilities. To besiege Paris was impossible because 
this would take time, moreover the Allied armies 
were still unbroken, the Eussians were coming up 
in the East and carrying all before them, and it 
was necessary to destroy the Erench and English 
armies promptly and turn East. To storm Paris 
was conceivably possible, but promised to be too 
costly in lives while the Allied armies still stood. 
There remained the possibility of breaking the Al- 
lied center between Paris and the barrier forts, 
cutting the Allied line in half and rolling up both 
fractions, one on Paris, the other against the Crown 
Prince and General von Heeringen in Lorraine. 

"The last was the plan chosen by the German 
General Staff. * * * General von Kluck's ma- 
noeuver before Paris was the decisive movement. 
* * * Suddenly, on September Y, the garri- 
son of Paris struck east. The Anglo-French force 
struck north toward Montmuraie and the Marne and 
for forty-eight hours the fate of von Kluck was in 
doubt. Fighting desperately he managed to slip 
between and escape the blades, leaving artillery, sup- 
plies and wounded behind him. But in the struggle 
he lost, his ammunition train and his communica- 
tions were severely compromised. 

"By tremendous efforts von Kluck won free about 



PALEOLITHIC SUEVIVALS 103 

September 10 and started north at terrific speed. 
Meantime to the east the desperate efforts of von 
Buelow had failed. The French center was not to 
be broken. Pushed back beyond Sezanne and Camp- 
de-Mailly it stood inexpugnable; as for the right, it 
was equally adamant. ISTot only had the attack 
failed, but the rapid retreat of von Kluck opened 
the flank of the German center. Accordingly it had 
to get up and go back, and after it the left. * * * 
So far as one can now judge the Battle of the Marne 
represented the deliberate and magnificent planning 
of General Joffre, who calmly permitted the Ger- 
mans to inundate provinces and ravage cities until 
by the very greatness of their labors, the privations 
and the losses in the series of battles they fought, 
they came upon the final battlefield weary and spent. 
* *■ * It was the French strategy that prevailed, 
it prevailed because the French, with their English 
comrades, were able to retreat for three weeks and 
strike back in the fourth. The Battle of the Marne 
could not end the war, but on the fields where Na- 
poleon won his last great battles and a century be- 
fore showed himself a supreme master of war, the 
long course of Prussian victories was at last inter- 
rupted by the sons of the soldiers who surrendered 
at Sedan and Metz, aided by the same British dog- 
gedness which a century before had won Waterloo." 
Imagine a palaeolithic man in an aeroplane gaz- 



104 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

ing down upon the panorama of Paris and the battle- 
fields on her outskirts upon which the fate of the 
city, perhaps of modern civilization, had been put to 
the issue of contemporary warfare in the early days 
of September, 1914, He would have seen beneath 
him the two things he had known and loved nearly 
a million years ago. War and Art, raised to the 
nth power. His chipped-stone axes have evoluted 
into machine-guns and lyddite shells, into steel bayo- 
nets and noiseless revolvers. His crude mural 
sketches have developed into the art treasures and 
architectural masterpieces that make Paris, from 
various points of view, the capital of the twentieth- 
century world. He would have looked down upon 
the Germans and the Allies slaughtering each other 
by modern machinery within sight of the towers 
of I^otre Dame, and into his prehistoric mind there 
might have crept a hint of the astounding fact that 
the struggle that had beset his own soul during his 
earthly career as a cave-man countless ages ago was 
rending the spirit of mankind to-day. Vaguely 
had he known in the dawn of man's earthly day 
that there were within him two antagonistic forces, 
the one driving him to the slaughter of his rivals 
with his battle-ax, the other tempting him toward 
the joy that came to him when he scratched pic- 
tures on a rock or molded soft clay into the shape 
of reindeer or bear or brother cave-man. 



PALEOLITHIC SURVIVALS 105 

And there beneath him at the Battle of the Marne 
our palaeolithic man could have gazed down upon 
a mighty, concrete manifestation of the same spirit- 
ual conflict that he, in a crude, infinitely petty way, 
had known in his soul well-nigh a million years 
ago. To-day, as in the time of the man of Mauer, 
the Battleaxe is at war with the Picture, the Ma- 
terial struggles to destroy the IdeaL 



CHAPTER VI 



HASHEESH FOE WAREIOKS 



CHAPTER VI 

HASHEESH FOR "WAERIOES 

Among the many amazing paradoxes that the 
study of history brings to light there can be found 
not one that is so tragically humorous or humor- 
ously tragic as the fact that an impossible dream, 
an alluring, but fatally foolish, vision of world 
domination, inspired a deluded nation to exhibit, 
in the year of Our Lord 1914, to the eyes of an 
astounded generation the most striking demonstra- 
tion of military efficiency that mankind has known. 
A cocaine fiend or an opium smoker who should be- 
come a I^apoleon of finance would appear to defy 
all the accepted axioms of physiology and psychol- 
ogy. But Germany in the twentieth century, a 
victim to poisonous ideas that acted upon the na- 
tion like a drug that changes the world of reality 
into a realm of phantasmagoria, made a god of Ef- 
ficiency and became more worthy than any people 
has yet been of that admirable deity. It is a fact 
worth noting, in this connection, that the prophet 
and lawgiver who was so largely responsible for 

109 



110 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

Germany's recent exhibition of astonishing pre- 
paredness, to the minutest detail, for the maddest 
of all human rainbow-chasing died insane. The 
hasheesh injected into the veins of his compatriots 
by the pen of Nietzsche had two seemingly contra- 
dictory results. It accentuated in a people ex- 
tremely susceptible to the lure of the imagination 
a tendency to hitch their wagon to a star, and at 
the same time it inspired them to make that wagon, 
designed for an adventure beyond the bounds of hu- 
man achievement, stronger and better equipped than 
any vehicle the ingenuity of man had ever con- 
structed. Germany dreamed of world empire and, 
with practical common sense, sewed four suspender 
buttons instead of two upon the rear waistband of 
a soldier's trousers. 

Before going on to a glance at the disastrous 
consequences to Germany of the defeat of her armies 
at the battle of the Marne, it is worth our while 
to examine the mental poison distilled by Nietzsche 
and others that drove a seemingly sane nation into 
an exploit more insane and, alas, more fatally far- 
reaching in its hideous effects, than any hare-brained 
crusade in the heroic and mock-heroic past of man- 
kind, a past in which Don Quixote often reappears, 
but never until 1914 as a drug fiend who was as 
efficient in his foolishness as he was foolish in his 
efficiency. 



HASHEESH FOR WAREIORS 111 

. In ''Thus Spake Z arathustrd," Nietzsche says: 
"I do not advise you to compromise and make peace, 
hut to conquer. Let your labor be fighting and your 
peace victory. What is good ? All that increases 
the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself 
in man. What is bad ? All that proceeds from 
weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that 
power increases, that resistance is being overcome. 
]^ot contentment, but more power! Not peace at 
any price, but war ! Not virtue, but efficiency ! The 
weak and the botched must perish: that is the first 
principle of our humanity. And they should he 
helped to perish! I am writing for the lords of 
the earth. You say that a good cause hallows even 
war? I tell you that a good war hallows every 
cause." 

Hark to the voice of Dr. Adolph Lasson, Profes- 
sor of Philosophy in Berlin University: "No one 
can remain neutral to the German State and peo- 
ple. Either you consider it the most perfect crea- 
tion that history has produced up to now or you 
acquiesce in its destruction — nay, in its extermina- 
tion. We are morally and intellectually superior 
beyond all comparison, as are our organizations and 
our institutions. Our army is the epitome of Ger- 
man excellence. We have nothing to apologize for. 
Louvain was not destroyed — only the houses of mur- 
derers. The cathedral of Rheims is not destroyed. 



112 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

The French caused the damage. England acts in 
politics as if we lived in the eighteenth century. 
Germany has taught the world how to carry on war 
and politics in a conscientious manner." 

Hark to Major-General von Disfurth, a distin- 
guished retired officer of the German army: "There 
is no reason whatever why we should trouble our- 
selves about the notions concerning us in other coun- 
tries. Germany stands as the supreme arbiter of 
her own methods. It is of no consequence whatever 
if all the monuments ever created, all the pictures 
ever painted, and all the buildings ever erected by 
the great architects of the world be destroyed, if 
by their destruction we promote Germany's victory 
over her enemies. The commonest, ugliest stone 
placed to mark the burial place of a German grena- 
dier is a more glorious and venerable monument 
than all the cathedrals of Europe put together. 
They call us barbarians. What of it? We scorn 
them and their abuse. For my part I hope that in 
this war we have merited the title of barbarians. 
Let neutral peoples and our enemies cease their 
empty chatter, which may well be compared to the 
twitter of birds. Let them cease to talk of the 
cathedral of Kheims and of all the churches and all 
the castles in France which have shared its fate. 
These things do not interest us. Our troops must 
achieve victory. What else matters?" 



HASHEESH FOE WAEEIOES 113 

These are not the vaporings of inmates of in- 
sane asylums or the inchoate utterances of con- 
temporary cave-men ; they are the calm, studied pro- 
nouncements of so-called intellectuals, of men who 
have drunk deep of German culture at its very 
sources, of men who have helped to make that cul- 
ture what it stands for in the intellectual world. 
In the course of their extended and scholarly read- 
ing, these men, N"ietzsche, Lasson, von Disfurth, 
and the countless lesser lights of the Nietzschean- 
Treitschkean cult, must have come upon the origin 
of our English word "assassin," which means a hash- 
eesh-in, or hasheesh-eater. The Century Diction- 
ary informs us that "a. colony migrated from Persia 
to Syria, settled in various places, with their chief 
seats on the mountains of Lebanon, and became 
remarkable for their secret murders in blind obedi- 
ence to the will of their chief. "Their religion was 
a compound of Magianism, Judaism, Christianity, 
and Mohammedanism. One article of their creed 
was that the Holy Spirit resided in their chief 
and that his orders proceeded from God himself. 
The chief of the sect is best known as ^Old Man 
of the Mountains' (Arabic sheikh al-jebal, chief 
of the mountains). These barbarous diieftains 
and their followers spread terror among nations 
far and near for at least two centuries. In the 
time of the crusaders they mustered to the num- 



114 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

ber of 50,000 and presented a fonnidable obstacle 
to the arms of the Christians." 

The method pursued by the Assassins in developing 
their military power was simple but effective. They 
would lure a healthy, vigorous boy into a fondness for 
the intoxicating joys furnished to its victims by 
the drug hasheesh and presently the fallen youth 
would stop at no crime that offered him the means 
to provide himself with the poison he had learned 
to crave. His moral nature had been destroyed by 
a drug but he had been transformed into a valu- 
able agent for furthering the projects of the Old 
Man of the Mountain. 

A pernicious ideal may do to a nation what hash- 
eesh does to an individual. That drug-begotten 
dreams did not prevent the Assassins of Syria from 
becoming noteworthy warriors, history assures us. 
That the egotism, brutality, and insistence upon 
world-domination displayed by the most influential 
German writers of recent years have worked to- 
gether to make the German military machine a most 
effective institution the world well knows. But the 
hasheesh-eaters, despite their martial powers, were 
after all only pitiful somnambulists following the 
dream-begotten lures of the night, destined in the 
lapse of ages to leave no trace behind them save 
as their memory is perpetuated in one of the most 
evil of all evil words. Prophecy may be out of 



HASHEESH FOR WARRIORS 115 

place at an unprecedented world crisis when new 
elements affecting the course of history have en- 
tered into the greatest of all international conflicts, 
but is it not possible, even probable, that a century 
hence the German vision of world-dominion as it 
inspired the armies of William II, will look to our 
descendants like a drug-born dream as fantastic and 
unreal as the wildest chimera that came to the hash- 
eesh-poisoned Assassins of Syria ? 

Charles W. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard 
University, in a letter to the New York Times, 
dated N'ovember 17, 1914, says: "The present war 
is the inevitable result of lust of empire, autocratic 
government, sudden wealth, and the religion of 
valor. * * * The real cause of the war is this 
gradually developed barbaric state of the German 
mind and will. All other causes — such as the as- 
sassination of the heir to the throne of Austria- 
Hungary, the sympathy of Russia with the Balkan 
States, the French desire for the recovery of Al- 
sace-Lorraine and Great Britain's jealousy of Ger- 
man aggrandizement— rare secondary and incidental 
causes ; causes contributory, indeed, but not primary 
and fimdamental. If anyone ask who brought the 
ruling class in Germany to this barbaric frame of 
mind, the answer must be Bismarck, Moltke, 
Treitschke, ISTietzsche, Bernhardi, the German Em- 
peror, their like, their disciples, and the military 



116 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

caste." As the Old Man of the Mountains, in the 
merry days of the dominant Assassins, would line 
up the striplings of his tribe and teach them at one 
and the same time the joys of hasheesh and the 
manual of arms, so had the German Kaiser made 
fearless and able soldiers of the youth of his do- 
minion while they were mentally under the per- 
nicious influence of ideas promulgated by brilliant 
writers. What fate does the future hold for the 
expression, "Pan-Germanism" ? Will it carry with 
it to posterity, as has the word assassin, the germ- 
idea of crime springing from an abnormal condi- 
tion of mind superinduced by a poison? 

The hasheesh of Militarism had carried the Ger- 
mans early in September, 1914, to the outskirts of 
Paris where suddenly the mirage of world-domina- 
tion had lost something of its semblance of reality 
to the eyes of martial adventurers, who would have 
been amazed to learn that, despite their splendid 
soldierly achievements, they were, at the supreme 
crisis in a crucial campaign, merely sleep-walkers 
drugged by an impracticable idea. The Battle of 
the Aisne, the first shots of which were fired on 
September 12, was a colossal struggle, unprece- 
dented in the size of the armies engaged and the 
extent of territory involved in the combat, in which 
a mighty host, fit to the smallest detail for the stu- 
pendous task before them and inspired by the teach- 



HASHEESH FOR WARRIORS 117 

ings of a man who died insane, confronted the allied 
armies of France and England, actuated by the 
eminently sane idea that our planet belongs, and 
shall always belong, to many races and not to one 
alone. 

The long and indecisive struggle at the Aisne, 
which merged eventually into the Battle of the Seven 
Rivers, to become, after a time, the Battle of Flan- 
ders, offers, as it displays the horrors and heroisms 
of modern warfare, a ray of encouragement to the 
pacificists. In its duration, the varying fortunes 
that attended the efforts of the entrenched Germans 
and the attacking Allies, or of the Germans sally- 
ing forth on the offensive to be met with the strong 
Allied defense, the possibility is suggested that war 
may sometime become obsolete through the ingenuity 
of man in making weapons so deadly that in the 
future a great battle could end only in a draw. That 
any higher consideration than this is likely to in- 
fluence mankind in the near future to make battles 
as obsolete as are duels in America is not probable, 
despite the fact that the exhibition that modern, 
civilized man made of himself at the River Aisne 
in September of 1914 was sufficiently ludicrous, 
could one forget the tragedy of the demonstration, 
to put warfare forever out of existence, provided 
man could be guided by that God-given sense of 



118 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

humor which was denied to our palaeolithic progeni- 
tors. 

The youthful and vigorous of the most highly 
civilized nations in Europe were devoting all their 
energies for days and weeks to an effort to annihi- 
late the hope of the future, to put a continent, per- 
haps the world at large, back into a state of bar- 
barism, the more complete because it had been 
accomplished by the aid of science. As Mr. Fred- 
erick Palmer in his brilliant and timely novel, "The 
Last Shot," so clearly demonstrates, the units of 
contending armies harbor no inherent antagonism to 
each other. When the hasheesh of world-domination 
is temporarily out of his mind, the German private 
has no hatred for a Belgian, a Frenchman or an 
Englishman. But when his commander gives the 
order to kill he overcomes his characteristic good 
nature and gives way to the Berserker rage that is 
not unlike what physicians term auto-intoxication, 
a disturbed physical condition caused by the poisons 
emanating from undigested food. The toxic effects 
of mental suggestions made to a susceptible and 
highly efficient people by Nietzsche, Treitschke and 
others produced that amazing panorama of human 
brutality and idiocy that is to be known to posterity 
as the Battle of the Aisne. 

We may feel sure that the Old Man of the Moun- 
tains who, centuries ago, made effective assassins of 



HASHEESH EOR WAERIORS 119 

the joung men of his tribe by means of a narcotic 
would be interested, were he to revisit the earth, in 
a report made by the English Official Press Bureau 
in November, 1914, which runs in part as follows: 
"Whatever deterioration there may be in the ma- 
terial which is now being drafted into the ranks of 
the enemy it must be admitted that the Prussian 
war machine, acting upon a nation which had pre- 
viously been inured to the sternest discipline, has ob- 
tained most remarkable results. * * * It is 
true that a considerable proportion of the masses 
recently thrown into the field against the British 
consisted of hastily trained, immature men, but the 
great fact remains that these ill assorted levies have 
not hesitated to advance against highly trained 
troops. In spite of the lack of officers, in spite of 
their inexperience, boys of sixteen and seventeen 
have faced our guns and marched steadily to the 
muzzles of our rifles and met death in droves with- 
out flinching. Such is the effect of a century of 
national discipline. That the men subjected to it 
are the victims of an aristocratic military caste does 
not alter the fact that they have accepted that sys- 
tem as necessary to the attainment of national ideals. 
However discordant the elements which make up 
the German Empire, they have by the force of the 
Prussian war machine all been welded together to 
be able to fight for the national existence, and it is 



120 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

evident that for them 'Deutschland uber Alles' is no 
empty cry." 

We can picture the Old Man of the Mountains 
comparing notes with Kaiser William II. in the 
future in some quiet comer of the abode of spirits 
and boasting perhaps of the deeds his young as- 
sassins once performed against the Christian armies 
battling against pagans to win for the Cross the 
Holy Sepulchre. And it is not unreasonable to 
imagine that in the end the dialogue between the 
Sheikh al-jebal and the German War Lord might 
readily become a hot debate as to whether hasheesh 
made from the poppy or hasheesh made from books 
is the better drug for the turning of healthy-minded 
young men into man-killers. 



CHAPTEE VII 



THE SPIEITUAIi VEBSUS THE MATEEIAIi 



CHAPTER VII 

THE SPIEITUAL VERSUS THE MATERIA!, 

Today, as a century ago, Russia is to non-Sla- 
vonic Europe a monster, a menace and a mystery. 
She bore these three aspects to Xapoleon, who paid 
the penalty of failure for his inability, despite his 
comprehensive genius, to understand the signifi- 
cance, from a military standpoint, of Russia's geo- 
graphical position, trying climate, and inexhaustible 
resources in providing human food for cannon. The 
burning of Moscow, though he made it a boast, was 
not a feather in the great Corsican's cap. In the 
light of the blazing Kremlin he might have read 
the doom that was awaiting him as an imperial 
bandit, chasing the alluring but ever fatal rainbow 
of universal domination. iN'apoleon discovered, as 
has the twentieth century world, that Russia knows 
how to play a waiting game, to learn valuable les- 
sons from disaster, and, confident in the fulfillment 
of her seemingly manifest destiny, to pluck victory 
from defeat and even the spoils of war from military 
failure. 

123 



124 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

When Don Quixote in August, 1914, mounted his 
war-horse Rosinante and set out to put the French 
windmills liors-du-combat in time to spur eastward 
to charge the Russian sheep, he was laboring under 
the delusion that the sheep in question would be, as 
usual, slow in mobilizing. If they were not, if the 
Russian troops moved against Austria with unprec- 
edented celerity, would it not prove to posterity 
that l^icky, not Willie, was to blame for the world's 
greatest and most unjustifiable tragedy ? On August 
2, 1914, M. Sazonof, Russian Minister of Foreign 
Affairs, wrote from St. Petersburg to the Czar's Am- 
bassadors and Ministers in the various capitals of 
the world: 

"It is absolutely clear that Germany is already 
endeavoring to throw upon us the responsibility of 
the rupture. Our mobilization was provoked by 
the enormous responsibility which we should have 
incurred if we had not taken all precautionary meas- 
ures at a moment when Austria, confining herself 
to pour-parlers of a dilatory character, was bom- 
barding Belgrade and proceeding to a general 
mobilization. His Majesty the Emperor had imder- 
taken, by giving his personal word to the Emperor 
of Germany, not to undertake any aggressive act 
so long as the pour-parlers with Austria should con- 
tinue. After such a guarantee, and after all the 
proofs of Russia's love for peace, Germany could 



SPIKITUAL VERSUS MATERIAL 125 

not, and had no right to, doubt our declaration that 
we would accept with joy any pacific issue compati- 
ble with the dignity and independence of Servia. 
* * * By the decision to declare war upon us 
at a moment when the negotiations between the 
powers were still being pursued, Germany has as- 
sumed a heavy responsibility." 

Russia had learned a thing or two in Manchuria 
about modern warfare from the Japanese. Among 
the lessons that the Yellow Peril had taught to the 
Slav Peril was the necessity for celerity and sobriety 
if an army is to achieve victory in the twentieth 
century. The fact was — and the ultimate outcome 
of the war of wars will demonstrate its importance — 
that Germany and Austria were about to embark 
upon the maddest of all military adventures against 
nations whose armies had had, as the troops of Em- 
perors William and Francis Joseph had not had, 
experience in actual battle. Russia, England, France 
and Servia could put soldiers into the field at once 
who had been under fire in Manchuria or South 
Africa, Morocco or Turkey, who had abandoned mass 
formations, never employed the goose-step and under- 
stood how to carry themselves when subjected to the 
fire of modern guns. 

Why the German General Staff was astonished at 
the rapidity of Russia's mobilization and the effi- 
ciency presently displayed by the Czar's armies in 



126 THE GAME OF EMPIKES 

action is a question hard to answer. That experience 
is a competent teacher in the affairs as well of war as 
of peace should have been a fact known to the 
Kaiser's military advisers. But a board of experts 
who were amazed at the exhibition the Walloons gave 
at Liege of splendid fighting qualities, and which 
doubted the prowess of England and the martial 
spirit of France and refused to believe that open order 
is essential in modern attacking movements, is evi- 
dently doomed at all times to unpleasant surprises. 
One of the first and most sigTiificant of the many 
shocks that were being nourished in the womb of 
time for the Kaiser and his advisers will be known 
in history as the Battle of Lemberg. To a world 
appalled at the comparative ease with which the 
German armies had overrun Belgium and triumphed 
in Il^orthwestern France, placing Paris itself in grave 
jeopardy, the victory of the Russians at Lemberg, 
Galicia, over the main field army of the Austrians 
on September 1 came as a flash of light in a grow- 
ing darkness. As it was the first real triumph that 
the Allied cause had won, and as its military impor- 
tance and moral effect were pronounced, the destruc- 
tion of five Austrian corps by the Russians at Lem- 
berg will be remembered when engagements in the 
war of wars involving larger armies will be prac- 
tically forgotten. One effect produced by this in- 
itial triumph of the Czar's troops was to cause the 



SPIRITUAL VERSUS MATERIAL 127 

world at large to ask the question whether civiliza- 
tion, if anything should be left thereof, would be the 
more benefited by the coming of Pan-Slavism than 
by the ultimate domination of Pan-Germanism? 
Was the war of wars presenting to mankind merely 
a choice between two gigantic evils ? Beset as it 
was by all kinds of "perils," yellow, brown and vari- 
ous shades of white, an overwrought and somewhat 
hysterical generation grew constantly more nervous 
as the martial prowess of the Russians throughout 
the autumn of 1914 suggested the possibility that 
Western Europe might presently become wholly 
Slav. 

In this connection it is worth while to quote cer- 
tain striking utterances made in November, 1914, 
by the Empress of Russia to a newspaper correspond- 
ent: "Have you noticed," queried her Majesty, 
"how the war has welded the people into unbreak- 
able unity? As long as the war lasts there will 
be no political parties in the lands over which the 
Czar rules. The Labor Party is going hand in hand 
with the other parties. Poles, Finns and Jews have 
become Russians. . . . From the Arctic to the Black 
Sea and from Vladivostok to the Baltic you will 
find one united Russia which can and will be vic- 
torious." As was illustrated by various suggestive 
facts presented in a former chapter, the prehistoric 
passion called patriotism, exhibited in a primitive 



128 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

way by a palaeolithic cave-man defending his hole 
in the ground from attack, is, in the last analysis, 
the one universal human motive that made it pos- 
sible for hereditary autocracy to precipitate in the 
twentieth century a world-wide war. Dulce et decor 
est 'pro jjatria mori! 

It is not improbable that Horace smiled in his 
toga as he wrote the immortal line that so music- 
ally presents a poetical untiTith. It may be praise- 
worthy, perhaps, to drown in a trench or to be blown 
to pieces by a shell for the flag of one's country, 
but it surely cannot be sweet and pleasant. But 
Mars, who fashioned new weapons for the great red 
year 1914, seemed to be making a world-wide ex- 
periment in the twentieth century to see how far a 
seemingly unconquerable and practically omnipresent 
human passion would carry a race that has for count- 
less ages tossed boundary stones about the planet in 
a game that could not be played unless men be- 
lieved, as the Latin bard asserts, that it is a rather 
jolly and extremely handsome thing to die for one's 
country. Pan-Germanism, Pan-Slavism and Pan- 
Islamism are merely forms of palseolithic patriotism 
raised to a higher power and acting, whenever the 
opportunity offers, upon the offensive. And the 
passion upon which these futile efforts at national, 
racial or religious world-domination are based is the 
very passion that makes them abortive. No single 



SPIRITUAL VERSUS MATERIAL 129 

race can ever rule the earth until it alone has a 
monopoly of that patriotic fervor that drives men so 
courageously to death on the battlefield. The pa- 
triotism of Belgium tripped up Don Quixote faring 
forth in shining armor on his war-horse to tilt at 
the French windmills. And while Galieni's patriots 
rallied to defend Paris from the peripatetic patriots 
who followed the raiding von Kluck, Russian pa- 
triots were defeating Austrian patriots at Lemberg — 
while Mars chuckled joyously, Terminus lost track 
of his boundary stones and Jupiter remained in hid- 
ing, deaf to the prayers of countless widows and 
orphans. 

But to return to the Empress of Russia and her 
message to a world at strife. "If the war is pro- 
longed," said the Czarina, "and very costly in life 
it will be the defenders of justice and not the prom- 
ise-breakers or neutrality violators who will at last 
attain victory." Russia is thus officially placed upon 
the side of the defenders of justice. Her Majesty 
the Empress has said it. Russia is in arms against 
promise-breakers and neutrality violators. The al- 
leged monster, menace and mystery is, it is to be 
seen, not a monster, is no longer a menace and is a 
mystery only to those who have not read the inspir- 
ing words of the Czarina. There is no Slav Peril. 
If Constantinople falls into the paw of the great 
white bear, that long-desired key to empire will 



130 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

be in the grasp not of a ravenous brute but, praise 
be to the God of Battles, to a defender of justice. 
Willie, as the Czarina implies, is a promise-breaker 
and a neutrality violator but Nicky, at the greatest 
of all world crises, is hot and pugnacious for the 
sanctity of treaties and, under the stress of uplift- 
ing emotions, is convinced that Poles, Finns and 
Jews are, and ought to be, Russians when Russia 
is in need of men to die for the ten commandments, 
the golden rule — and the Golden Horn. 

If there appears to be a note of sarcasm running 
through the above is it not, at least to American 
readers of these side-lights on the war of wars, jus- 
tifiable ? With all our pity and sympathy for the 
victims of the world-tragedy of 1914, there cannot 
but be in the hearts of the people of the United 
States a feeling of bitterness toward both the mon- 
archs of the Old World and their deluded, hypno- 
tized subjects for inflicting upon contemporary civi- 
lization, so-called, a condition that makes the very 
word civilization a mockery. Behold the hypocrisies, 
the inconsistencies, the blasphemies of rulers and 
peoples engaged in this pitiless, unjustifiable war 
of wars ! German scientists experiment with a drug 
that produces what is called "the twilight sleep," 
rendering child-birth painless, while to their ears 
comes the roar of guns from battle-lines upon which 
millions of men are engaged in the pitiless work of 



SPIRITUAL VERSUS MATERIAL 131 

mutual slaughter. Professor Kochen, winner of the 
Nobel prize for surgery in 1912, presents to a world 
at war two years later the philanthropic drug coag- 
ulen, which instantly stops the flow of blood when 
applied to a wound and is destined, experts assure 
a blood-glutted generation, to save the lives of count- 
less combatants on the battlefields of to-day and 
to-morrow. European genius is making a ridicu- 
lous exhibition of itself. It is engaged in both 
the destruction and the preservation of human life. 
It is displaying amazing ingenuity in rendering war 
more deadly than heretofore, while at the same time 
it removes the curse of Eve from child-bearing and 
minimizes the perils from gunshot wounds. It makes 
a charnel house of a continent the while it boasts 
of new triumphs in antiseptic dressings. Mankind 
seems to have become a kind of universal Dr. Jekyll- 
Mr. Hyde, in whom both the best and the worst in 
human nature are infinitely exaggerated, furnishing 
new and powerful arguments to both the optimist and 
the pessimist, and leaving him who is neither the 
one nor the other dazed and unconvinced. 

A noted English statistician was quoted in the 
American newspapers published on the morning of 
Thanksgiving Day, 1914, to the effect that the war 
of wars after a duration of less than four months 
had cost Europe nearly five million men in the vigor 
of youthful mankind. It is reasonable to imagine 



132 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

that any nation displaying its gratitude to the Al- 
mighty for blessings recently conferred must have 
been shocked by the figures mentioned above. Some- 
how the turkeys consumed in the United States on 
November 26, 1914, seemed to be curiously flavorless 
and the sermons delivered from countless pulpits 
upon the morning of that day were most amazingly 
contradictory. The pillars of European civilization 
had been overthrown by the shots from a Servian 
patriot's revolver. But the material damage done 
by Gavrilo Prinzip, appalling as it is and immeas- 
urably great, will not be as interesting to posterity 
as the conflict precipitated at Sarajevo, Bosnia, in 
June, 1914, in the realm of ideas, beliefs, creeds, 
religions, philosophies, national aspirations and indi- 
vidual spiritual longings, convictions and doubts. 
The real war of wars is, after all, being carried on 
between Haeckel, the master-mind of Materialism, 
and Sir Oliver Lodge, the master-mind of Spirit- 
ualism. 

If the immortality of the soul is but a figment 
of man's imagination, as Haeckel asserts, then Ger- 
man Militarism can find no difficulty in justifying 
itself. Why should ephemera3 be called upon to 
comport themselves as if they were, and believed 
themselves to be, immortals? If materialism is in 
fact the ultimate truth, then has a nation or a race 
but one duty, and that is to itself, to find its place 



SPIRITUAL VERSUS MATERIAL 133 

in the sun and maintain itself therein as long as 
possible. If the materialistic philosophers have the 
better of an ancient and never-ending debate, noth- 
ing can be said against Pan-Germanism, Pan-Slav- 
ism, Pan-Islamism, Pan-Americanism, Pan-Anglo- 
Saxonism, Pan-Mongolianism, or any other move- 
ment having for its purpose the betterment of con- 
ditions for certain species of human ephemeridsB 
anxious to enjoy to the full their momentary gambol 
in the sunshine of physical existence. 

From the standpoint of the materialistic, four or 
five million human insects were destroyed in Europe 
in the summer and fall of 1914 to the end that 
German flies or Slav flies or Latin flies or Anglo- 
Saxon flies might buzz a bit more merrily in the 
sunny days to come. If the aggressive and victori- 
ous Roman flies of a glorious epoch in European 
history had, at the height of their Pan-Csesarism, 
set aside a day for national thanksgiving we can 
imagine that their devout gratitude to Jupiter 
might have been voiced somewhat as follows : "We, 
unconquerable Romans, hold within our hearts no 
real belief in thee, oh Jove, the Omnipotent, but, 
for the sake of appearances, we express to thee our 
gratitude for our continued success in destroying 
the swarms of barbarian flies that have recently 
beset us and we beseech thee to continue to smile 
upon us from on high, to the end that our buzzing 



134 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

may be heard to the end of time in all comers of a 
world that rightfully belongs to the flies that are 
strongest on the wing. Why we, who are omnipo- 
tent on earth, feel impelled to offer prayers and 
oblations to gods in whose existence we have no 
belief is a mystery that we cannot solve, it^everthe- 
less, we who are about to die salute both Csesar, 
whom we see, and Jove, whom we do not see. If 
we are inconsistent in so doing, be it remembered 
that we, after all, are nothing but ephemeral flies, 
who have won by our prowess earth's fairest spots 
in the sun but are still unsatisfied, and feel within 
us an inexplicable and utterly absurd inclination 
to pay our homage to a spiritual power that we 
know does not exist." 

It is noteworthy that in the year of Our Lord 
1914 a generation that was sufficiently materialistic 
to plunge into a war of a magnitude that makes 
the campaigns of the Roman legions appear insig- 
nificant was inclined, as were the skeptical but also 
superstitious cohorts of Csesar, to make public ac- 
knowledgTQent of man's subserviency to an Almighty 
God. Even the invasion and destruction of Belgium 
were accomplished in the name of the Deity, who 
was publicly and frequently invoked by the High 
Priest of Militarism, the German War Lord, to 
bless the Krupp guns that were engaged in dissemi- 
nating culture at the expense of historic churches 



SPIEITUAL VERSUS MATERIAL 135 

and cathedrals. Russian priests raised ikons aloft 
and despatched millions of devout warriors to fight 
and, if need be to die, for the Lord. The religious 
fanaticism of Islam was aroused to the danger- 
point and a Holy War was preached in the East to 
the end that Allah and his Prophet might at length 
prevail against the heathen dogs, who worship Christ 
and Him Crucified. In every quarter of the civilized 
and semi-civilized world — a distinction, by the way, 
that seems somewhat absurd at present — temples, 
churches, altars and priests gave indications of an 
unprecedented religious activity in a world that, for 
the first time in the history of the race, was engaged 
in an effort to make the slaughter of man by man 
universal. 

It was reserved for us Americans, who have al- 
ways boasted of our possession of a keen sense of 
humor, to introduce a grimly laughable element into 
ft situation that kings and priests and devotees had 
made sufficiently ludicrous without our assistance. 
The Yankee humorist who originated the famous 
query, "Where was Moses when the light went out ?" 
was evidently still in existence and up to an old 
trick upon a larger scale. In newspapers, maga- 
zines, pulpits, clubs and homes the discussion of the 
question whether we Americans, through the in- 
fluence of the war of wars, had lost our faith in 
God waxed hot and bitter. An enormous amount 



136 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

of printer's ink was expended in a nation-wide de- 
bate the absurdity of which our boasted national sen- 
sitiveness to humor did not, strange as it may seem, 
make clear to us. For the incontrovertible fact is 
that of all the varied activities of man upon earth 
war is the most ancient. The cave-man believed in 
both supernatural phenomena and in the effective- 
ness of his battle-ax. In the twentieth century the 
human race as a whole is exhibiting, on an enor- 
mous scale, its faith in something that is not ma- 
terialistic and in its continued addiction to war- 
fare. The fact that the war of wars is the most 
stupendous conflict in the history of the race has 
no bearing upon man's belief or non-belief in God. 
If war produced always an increase in the number 
of atheists, there has been sufficient warfare in for- 
mer ages to destroy religion. But the truth is that 
atheism flourishes more vigorously in times of peace 
than in periods of human stress and strife. If we 
Americans have lost faith in a petty, anthropomor- 
phic deity, we have gained in its place a conception 
of the Almighty more worthy of a universe that is 
both material and spiritual, and of a maker thereof, 
than a God who could become a reductio ad absurdum 
because Man is still brutal enough to indulge in 
war. What is being destroyed upon the blood-red 
earth to-day is the so-called divine right of kings, not 
man's belief in divinity itself. 



CHAPTER VIII 

gekmany's god and japan's 



CHAPTEK yill 

Germany's god and japan's 

As mankind has advanced in civilization, pro- 
gressing, that is, from retail to wholesale slaughter, 
from localized to general wars, from crude to com- 
plex weapons. Mars and Terminus in their bloody 
games with the boundary stones have given to 
ISTeptune a constantly increasing participation in 
their grewsome pastime. To own the earth it is 
first necessary to dominate the seas. A Bismarck 
and Von Moltke can start a nation upon the path- 
way toward greatness, but its lofty destiny cannot 
be fulfilled without the genius that accomplishes 
upon the high seas what military supremacy achieves 
upon land. Even a comparatively small island- 
nation, whose military power is not formidable, may 
dominate a large part of the globe if it always 
maintains a navy large and strong enough to rule 
the waves. It is hard, of course, to make a people 
normally devoted to commerce, civic progress, sci- 
ence, music and other worthy pursuits comprehend 
at all times the necessity for constantly increasing 

139 



140 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

naval expenditures. Those infernal Social-Demo- 
crats have a rooted objection to being taxed for 
dreadnoughts and cruisers, battleships and subma- 
rines. But how can a War Lord achieve world domi- 
nation in the twentieth century if he is only half 
armed? J^ew places in the sun should not be ac- 
quired and held by an army unless its triumphs are 
to be eventually rendered of permanent value by 
naval victories. 

That German Militarism actually indulged for 
two generations in a dream of world conquest will 
take its place eventually as the most astounding 
and unbelievable fact in recorded history. But 
while posterity will marvel at the absurd grandeur 
of a vision that was eventually to cost the world 
the most appalling price that mankind has ever 
paid for the criminal ambitions of its rulers, our 
descendants will be also amazed at the complete 
preparedness for conquest upon both land and sea 
that Germany displayed during the earlier months 
of the war of wars. We have seen how the Kaiser's 
marvelous soldiers overran Belgium and carried their 
banner to the very outskirts of Paris in August and 
September, 1914. It is necessary, if we are to 
force the leading events of the war of wars into 
the illuminating perspective at which we aim, to 
glance for a moment from land to sea to note the 
endeavors of the Kaiser's naval arm to take an 



GEKMANY'S GOD AND JAPAN'S 141 

important part in a conflict that authoritative Ger- 
man writers had assured the world must result in 
universal domination or complete downfall for their 
nation. 

By the time the Battle of the Aisne had devel- 
oped into the Battle of Flanders the war of wars 
had furnished to Neptune, as it had to Mars, the 
most interesting experience in his protracted career 
as a deity. German commerce had been driven 
from the seven seas but not without a struggle that 
took a heavy toll from the Mistress of the Ocean and 
her allies, white and yellow. By the middle of 
November, 1914, Great Britain's losses on the water 
included the following naval vessels, of various types : 
Amphion, Eyrion, Speedy, Pathfinder, Oceanic, 
Pegasus, Ahoukir, Cressy, Hogue, Ardmownt, 
HaiuJce, the submarine E-3, Hermes, Audacious, 
Good Hope, Monmouth, the submarine D-5, Niger 
and Bobilla. Russia had lost the Pallada, Jem- 
tchug and Pruth, Japan the Takachiko and the Tor- 
pedo Boat 33, while France had sacrified the Zelie 
and Mosquet. But despite all this, it appeared that 
Germany's employment of sea power to obtain world 
domination was to be a vain and costly experiment. 
Her naval base at Kiao-Chau, China, fortified at an 
enormous cost, had, after a protracted and coura- 
geous defense, surrendered to the Japanese. The 
Kaiser's islands and colonies in various parts of 



142 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

the world had been seized by Great Britain or one 
of her allies, and his main battle-fleet remained 
inoperative under the protection of the powerful 
fortifications at Heligoland. German submarines 
had achieved, it is true, notable triumphs, but the 
fact was clear that four months after Germany had 
begun war against the Triple Entente, supported or 
hampered, as the case might be, by Austria, the 
Kaiser had been deprived of various Oriental places 
in the sun, his armies were spending more time 
on the defensive than on the offensive, his naval 
forces seemed to be hemmed in, and Russian armies 
were winning victories against him that forced him 
to think of the Czar not as Nicky but as Nicholas. 

The German disaster at Kiao-Chau was of greater 
significance than the world at large, hypnotized by 
the kaleidoscopic interplay of great events in Europe, 
at first realized. The history of the rise and fall of 
the Kaiser's power in the Chinese province of Shan- 
tung is illuminating in many ways, showing as it does 
in miniature both the merits and defects of methods 
of procedure based upon the propositions that might 
makes right and that efficiency covers a multitude 
of sins. In 1897 two Roman Catholic priests of 
German birth were murdered by a mob in Shantung. 
In November of that year a German squadron, en- 
forcing Germany's demands for reparation, put 
into Kiao-Chau Bay and hoisted the red, white and 



GERMANY'S GOD AND JAPAN'S 143 

black flag over the town of Tsingtao. In the treaty 
presently signed by China and Germany the latter 
power obtained a "sphere of interest," two hundred 
square miles in extent, that has been called by well- 
informed writers "a key to Empire." Rohrbach 
in his book entitled "The German Colonies," in 
speaking of this act of aggression on the part of 
Germany, says: "In order to appease the sensi- 
bilities of the Chinese, the arrangement was looked 
upon simply in the light of a lease for ninety-nine 
years." Rapidly under the influence of German 
efiiciency Tsingtao became a model modern city, 
strongly fortified, ruled by Prussian oSicers, its com- 
mercial importance growing by leaps and bounds, 
and its destiny as the concentration point, on the 
coast, of the vast system of trunk railways now 
building in China seemingly assured. In harbor 
works alone, Germany expended $30,000,000 in ten 
years. A ring of twelve modern forts was erected 
to defend this most desirable sunny spot, from which 
the glorious cause of Teutonic world domination 
could be effectively forwarded. 

The brigandage and piracy that prevail in the 
twentieth century have discarded the antique em- 
blem of a black flag with skull and cross-bones and 
perform their lawless mission upon earth under a 
new banner upon which are inscribed words of 
lofty import — Efiiciency, Sanitation, Public Safety, 



144 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

and the like. Cleanliness may be, indeed, next to 
godliness, but for some generations past it has 
served as an ally to, and an excuse for, military ag- 
gression, the forerunner of commercial expansion. 
To cleanse and rebuild, to ornament and fortify, to 
enlarge and strengthen a key to empire in the far 
East is to fulfill, is it not, the manifest destiny of a 
materialistic power that is under obligations to itself 
and to posterity to plant the seeds of culture in 
every quarter of the globe ? And a treaty signed 
with Asiatics is, of course, only a scrap of rice 
paper. 

The practical difficulty confronting every effort at 
world domination recorded in human history lay in 
the fact that nations or races that have set out upon 
the Great Adventure, whether under an Alexander, 
an Attila, a Napoleon or a William II were defying, 
from the very beginning of their aggressions, one 
of the few human passions that can be called uni- 
versal. Desirable, even undesirable, places in the 
sun cannot be gTabbed by a peripatetic armed power 
without running foul of that love of country that 
is alone responsible for the fact that this globe has 
not in the past been wholly overrun by some mar- 
tial, unprincipled, ambitious race. When Germany 
accomplished her coup de main at Tsingtao in 1898 
the most patriotic people in the Far East, the Japa- 
nese, felt themselves again outraged by a power 



GERMANY'S GOD AND JAPAN'S 145 

against whicli they had for three years nourished a 
burning grudge. Japan had demanded, as a legiti- 
mate reward for her success in the war of 1895 
against China, Port Arthur and the Liaotung Penin- 
sula; and Germany had been instrumental in de- 
priving the victor of her seemingly rightful booty. 
In 1914 the war of wars, destined to settle many 
old scores the while it begets new ones, offered to 
Japan an opportunity to cross swords with Germany 
for the possession of Kiao-Chau Bay and Tsingtao, 
the center of dominion over vast territories, and 
millions of people who have become, because of 
military weakness, mere pawns in the game of Em- 
pires whose dice are now, as throughout former ages, 
human bones. The German forces at Tsingtao rep- 
resented to the keen eyes of the far-sighted Japa- 
nese the White Peril, against the Russian mani- 
festation of which they had fought and prevailed 
at Mukden. At the outbreak of the war of wars, 
Japan hastened to fulfill her treaty obligations to 
England with a precipitancy that was defended, di- 
rectly and indirectly, by her spokesmen as an indi- 
cation, at a time when the world had been shocked 
by German contempt for so-called scraps of paper, 
of the Mikado's reverence for, and loyalty to, inter- 
national obligations. The suspicions of Europe and 
America regarding the ambitions of Japan and her 
inclination toward expansion were allayed, for a 



146 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

time, at least, by her repeated assurances that what- 
ever islands, ports or territory might be seized by 
the Japanese during the progress of the war of wars 
would be returned to their rightful possessors at the 
end of the great conflict. Forgetful of the fate that 
had befallen Corea, and optimistic as always, we 
Americans turned our backs upon the Ear East and 
kept our eyes riveted upon Europe where, as it 
seemed to us, the future trend of what was to be 
left of modern civilization was to be determined. 
Our sympathies as a nation were with the Allies and 
to the side to which we inclined was not Japan giving 
most effective support? 

But the war of wars has been productive of events 
in the Far East of lasting significance to America. 
Whatever may be the effect of the great conflict upon 
the dominant nations of the earth, it is certain that 
Japan will be richly rewarded for her loyalty to 
the scrap of paper that attaches her, for the time 
being, to the fortunes of England. There are many 
points of resemblance between the methods and ambi- 
tions of Germany and those of Japan. They have 
both taken their high place among the dominant 
powers of the world through military achievements 
of a comparatively recent date. The German Em- 
pire, founded after a successful war of aggression, 
is not yet fifty years of age. Japan's amazing 
progress practically dates from her triumphant clash 



GERMANY'S GOD AND JAPAN'S 147 

with China in the last decade of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. The German Emperor and the Japanese 
Mikado claim, and are accorded by their subjects, a 
divine right to rule the destinies of their respective 
peoples. It is to the great god Efficiency that both 
the Germans and the Japanese pay the homage of 
enthusiastic worship. Through this potent and, in 
a sense, most praiseworthy deity, the Kaiser and the 
Mikado have been enabled to place themselves in a 
position to exert an influence upon the trend of 
twentieth century events not seemingly warranted by 
the numerical standing of their respective nations. 
That there is anything in the militarist creed as 
expounded by Treitschke and Bernhardi with which 
Japanese statesmen would not agree is to be doubted. 
Close study of the leading historical events of the 
last half century leads, indeed, to the conjecture as 
to whether the Japanese are the Geraians of the 
Far East or the Germans the Japanese of Europe. 
Preparedness, to the minutest detail, for war, both 
on land and sea; devotion to the cause of national 
expansion at any sacrifice, including the so-called 
rights of neutrals ; blind loyalty to the belief that 
the Kaiser, or Mikado, can do no wrong; physical 
courage and endurance that are Spartan in their 
excellence; reaction in beliefs going hand in hand 
with progress in martial equipment ; vastly enlarged 
domination or eventual downfall awaiting the sue- 



148 THE GAME OF EMPIKES 

cess or failure that shall result from to-day's strug- 
gles — all these, and other less obvious resemblances, 
emphasize the essential likeness between the German 
and the Japanese attitude toward earthly affairs to- 
day. And this attitude is based practically upon 
Haeckel's materialistic conviction that earthly af- 
fairs are the only kind to which sensible men should 
devote their attention. If there is, perchance, a 
spiritual world, let homeless Coreans and Belgians 
dream about it beneath the pitiless stars. Their 
dreams may cheer them up ! 

If to a certain type of American rainbow-chaser 
the great god Efficiency, to which the Germans and 
the Japanese bow down, seems to be of the earth 
earthy he may be entitled to his point of view, but 
it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that our 
posterity may hold him and his kind responsible for 
dire disasters that may overwhelm the United States 
in the not very distant future. That the outcome 
of the war of wars, whatever it may ultimately be, 
will bring increased menaces and perils to our coun- 
try is so apparent that he who denies this self-evi- 
dent fact is either mentally incompetent or wan- 
tonly indifferent to the nation's welfare. In Octo- 
ber, 1914, ex-President Roosevelt addressed the stu- 
dents of Princeton University to the following effect : 
"It is the country's duty to put itself into such 
shape that it will be able to defend its rights if 



GERMANY'S GOD AND JAPAN'S 149 

they are invaded. I myself have seen the plans of 
at least two empires now involved in the war to 
capture our great cities and hold them for ransom, 
because our standing army is too weak to protect 
them. I have seen plans prepared deliberately to 
take both San Francisco and New York and hold 
them for ransoms that would cripple our country and 
give funds to the enemy for carrying on the war." 
The war of wars was precipitated by a flash of 
lightning out of a comparatively clear sky in the 
early summer of 1914. One of its incidental effects 
was to divide Americans into two factions, the one 
gazing clear-eyed at an evil world as it is, the other 
claiming to see an approaching millennium just 
beyond the eventual surcease of hostilities that had 
so suddenly involved nearly all the nations of the 
earth. The scope, the horror, the unprecedented 
iconoclasm of the great conflict suggested to the 
pacificists the pleasing idea that war raised to the 
nth. power would so stultify itself to the eyes of out- 
raged humanity that its very hideousness would 
doom it to extinction. They argued that a final 
war of practically universal extent had long been 
inevitable and was a condition precedent to a world- 
wide state of peace that should prevail for all fu- 
ture time. They were inclined to look with consid- 
erable equanimity upon the conflict in Europe be- 
cause it proved on a larger scale than heretofore 



150 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

the inherent absurdity of war as a method of set- 
tling international disputes, and to their minds 
seemed to point to universal disarmament sooner 
than might reasonably have been expected had the 
war of wars been indefinitely postponed. That war 
as an institution seems to be subject to the all-em- 
bracing law of evolution, progressing from the simple 
to the complex, beginning with the clashes of indi- 
vidual cave-men and going on through the ages to 
wars involving continents and races is an idea so 
shocking to the peace-at-any-price people that they 
willfully blind their beaming eyes to the bloody 
panorama that the history of the twentieth century, 
begun but a few years ago, already presents to the 
gaze of man. 

It is extremely easy for a busy people, rightfully 
detesting war, resentful of the belligerency of other 
nations, and engaged upon the fascinating task of 
developing new markets opened to American enter- 
prise through the misfortunes of the Old World, to 
forget the lessons of the past and to blind themselves 
to the menaces of the present. But the fact is that 
only a century ago our national capital was in the 
hands of a foreign foe, despite the warnings of 
Washington and others against the perils that at- 
tended any entanglement upon our part in European 
affairs. The efforts of a JSTapoleon to dominate the 
world could not, even in the days when Europe was 



GERMANY'S GOD AND JAPAN'S 151 

practically six or eight times further away from 
us than it is to-day, fail to involve us in war. Since 
the dark hour when our English cousins drove Presi- 
dent Madison from our seat of government, our 
nation has been involved in many wars, for no one 
of which were we, from a military standpoint, even 
remotely prepared. Possessing nationally a happy- 
go-lucky temperament and the optimism of a gam- 
bling people who have always won the stakes we 
have been obliged to risk in the game of war, we 
to-day subconsciously take it for granted that we 
shall be, as heretofore, fortunate enough to triumph 
in the end over any enemy that may have the audac- 
ity to test our reserve fighting strength. 

The question as to the guilt or innocence of any 
one man, or group of men, in connection with the 
overthrow of the pillars of European civilization 
in the summer of 1914 is, and always will be, of 
academic interest, but it is not the most important 
feature of the war of wars to the people of America. 
The suddenness of the great catastrophe, the indif- 
ference of those who brought it about to all the 
diplomatic and other safeguards against war that 
so-called human progress had devised, the exhibition 
it presented to an astounded and horrified world of 
the fact that the planet upon which we live is al- 
ready, from one point of view, overcrowded and 
that strength rather than righteousness is still in- 



152 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

voked by the rulers of tlie world, to the end that the 
strong may supplant the weak in the sunny spots on 
the globe, should combine to open the eyes of Ameri- 
cans, blind to the full sig-nificance of an unprece- 
dented world tragedy, to their duty to themselves, 
their country and posterity. The harshest things 
that can be said against war are unquestionably and 
eternally true, but the man who inveighs against 
the injustice and wanton diabolism of cyclones and, 
living on a western prairie, fails to dig a cellar be- 
neath his house exhibits a well-defined streak of 
fatuous idiocy. The great god Efiiciency, to whom 
the Germans and the Japanese pay homage both 
in time of peace and in time of war, is a deity whose 
worship is advocated more and more, as the years 
pass, by American men of affairs. Efficiency has 
of late revolutionized business methods in this coun- 
try. But we have as yet restricted the benign in- 
fluence of this most admirable deity to activities for 
the pursuance of which the nation's peace is abso- 
lutely essential. If war should come to us in the 
twinkling of an eye, as it recently came to Europe, 
we would find ourselves abandoned at the most cru- 
cial crisis in our history by the power we have em- 
ployed for gain and refused to use for protection. 
We Americans rightfully consider ourselves worthy 
rivals of the Germans or the Japanese in the arts 
of peace. Surely it cannot be that we are destined 



GEEMAI^Y'S GOD AND JAPAN'S 153 

to resemble Coreans if the madcap Terminus, ren- 
dered more than ever insane by recent havoc with 
the boundary-stones, should inspire Mars to hurl the 
United States into the maelstrom of war. 



CHAPTER IX 

ALTKUISM, DEMOCKACY AND ARMS 



CHAPTER IX 

ALTEUISM, DEMOCRACY AND ARMS 

In his introduction to Roald Amundsen's book 
telling the story of the great Norwegian explorer's 
discovery of the South Pole, Fridtjof Nansen speaks 
generously of his successful rival's achievement in 
the following memorable words : "A victory of hu- 
man mind and human strength over the dominion 
and powers of N^ature; a deed that lifts us above 
the gray monotony of daily life; a view over shin- 
ing plains, with lofty mountains against the cold 
blue sky, and lands covered by ice-sheets of incon- 
ceivable extent; a vision of long-vanished glacial 
times; the triumph of the living over the stiffened 
realm of death." What a contrast the exploit of 
Amundsen, or the equally heroic feat of Peaiy, offers 
to the selfish adventures of a Napoleon to whom a 
province purloined from its legitimate inhabitants is 
worth the price of a million lives, or to the achieve- 
ments of the German commander who recently de- 
stroyed a Belgian city and grimly asserted that all 
the cathedrals of the world were valueless compared 

157 



158 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

with the life of one Prussian grenadier, a grenadier 
being useful for the furtherance of a new Napoleon's 
plans for world dominion. Amundsen and his cour- 
ageous colleagues, and Peary and his brave band, 
have faced death in its most hideous fomis to place 
the Norwegian flag at the South Pole and the Stars 
and Stripes at the North Pole. Their splendid hero- 
ism is of value to the world at this dread crisis as an 
illustration of that undying Quixotism that dwells 
in the soul of man, and has both its good and its 
evil manifestations. Demonstrated by a Columbus, 
a Magellan, a Stanley, a Peary or an Amundsen 
it results in "the triumph of the living over the 
stiffened realm of death." Shown by a military 
bandit its outcome is the victory of the stiffened 
realm of death over the living. The pathways of 
the world's great explorers are marked by the grave- 
stones of heroes who perished in the effort to broaden 
and enlighten the mind of man, to acquaint the 
race with the glory and extent of its earthly heritage. 
Where the feet of the globe's relentless conquerors 
have passed rest the bones of those who fell not 
that the light of knowledge might be further inten- 
sified in the human soul but, forsooth, that the god 
Terminus might again rearrange his unstable 
boundary-stones ! 

As we glance at the situation in the war zones of 
Europe two months after the historic date of August 



ALTRUISM, DEMOCRACY AND ARMS 159 

4, 1914, upon which unforgettable day Great Britain 
sent an ultimatum to Germany demanding that Bel- 
gian neutrality be respected and Germany declared 
war on France and Belgium, we find that the evil 
side of the Quixotism that is in man's make-up had 
been strikingly in evidence, and that the youth of 
Germany, under the hasheesh of poisonous ideals, 
had freely given their lives for the indefensible cause 
whose watchword is Deutsches iiher Alles. The Great 
Adventure, for which a nation that is not inherently 
adventurous had been, under the influence of the 
witchcraft of militarism, preparing for years, was 
not working out on the lines prescribed by the Gen- 
eral Staff. It had been so easy, comparatively speak- 
ing, to put Paris and France under subjection in 
1870! It had begun to look in October, 1914, as 
though the German diplomatists and military com- 
manders who had planned to dim the glory of a 
Bismarck and a von Moltke, had actually brought 
about a situation that was to enhance for all time 
the fame of the Iron Chancellor and the Iron 
Captain. 

"On October 4, 1914," says Mr. Frank H. 
Simonds, "it was Allied, not German, armies that 
were advancing in France. As on September 4 the 
world was talking of the fall of Paris, so on October 4 
it was the probable approach of German retreat from 
France which occupied the attention not alone of 



IGO THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

the Allies but of neutral observers. * * * What 
had opened as a daring, magnificent, unrivaled effort 
to end a vs^ar in the first v^^eeks of conflict with a brief 
and irresistible drive, had fallen now to the level 
of a campaign, in size, in extent of territory, in 
numbers engaged, unequaled in history, but still a 
campaign, like other campaigns, before Waterloo, 
Sedan and Sadowa had nourished the belief that 
nations could be crushed in weeks, even in days. So 
in a larger sense October 4 might be accepted as 
the date which saw the close of the first phase of 
the Great War, the interruption, perhaps temporary, 
perhaps final, of German expectations, but at least 
the termination of the period in which she had 
hoped to win quickly, the extinction of the dream 
which had dominated her military operations from 
Liege to the time when the Battle of the Aisne be- 
came the Battle of the Seven Eivers." 

"The extinction of the dream!" Mr. Simonds's 
expression is well chosen. But the dream to which 
he refers has been of much longer duration than 
he suggests in the context. And when a nation, or 
an individual, is under the influence of a dream 
facts become distorted, the worse appears the better 
reason, and the real world becomes a phantasmagoria 
in which neither logic nor reason prevails. In an 
interview granted to an American journalist by the 
German Crown Prince in November, 1914, the heir 



ALTRUISM, DEMOCRACY AND ARMS 161 

to the Kaiser's throne said: "I have faith in the 
sense of justice of the American people once we 
can get to them the actual facts and the actual truths 
back of this conflict. I know that up to this time 
it has been impossible for them to thoroughly under- 
stand our situation, but I believe that when the truth 
is known to them the love of fair play, which has 
always characterized the acts of your countrymen, 
will result in a revulsion of sentiment in our 
favor." 

That revulsion has not come, will never come. 
The Crown Prince was mistaken in his assertion 
that the people of the United States in November, 
1914, were not in possession of all the facts essential 
to a just verdict regarding the responsibility for 
the war of wars, the most gigantic and inexcusable 
crime in the world's history. Every opportunity 
had been given by the leading newspapers of America 
to German statesmen, diplomatists and writers to 
present to American readers every arg-ument, philo- 
sophical, historical, legal, military, social, practical 
and sentimental, that could be advanced by human 
ingenuity to vindicate Germany's invasion of Lux- 
embourg and the outcome thereof. The Crown 
Prince makes one admission that has been widely 
accepted as indicating a certain clearness of vision 
upon his part that, under different circumstances, 
might have led him to see the truth as we as a nation 



162 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

see it. "It seems to me," he is quoted as saying, 
"that this whole businet^ is senseless, unnecessary 
and uncalled for." In this His Royal Highness is 
most emphatically right. If he had gone a bit fur- 
ther and denounced the war as criminal madness, 
without justification on any ground, he would not 
have overstated the case against German militarism. 
Just before the outbreak of the American Civil War 
a citizen of Charleston, S. C, was approached by a 
stranger who asked to be directed to "the Insane 
Asylum." Pointing a finger to the north anc. then to 
the south, the Charlestonian remarked: "All roads in 
this city at present, my friend, lead to the Insane 
Asylum." Every step taken by Germany after the 
outbreak of war between Austria and Servia hurried 
the European powers into the abyss of a general 
war, "senseless, unnecessary and uncalled for," as 
the Crown Prince accurately" described it. "But 
Germany was left no choice in the matter," he goes 
on to say. "From the lowest to the highest, we all 
know that we are fighting for our existence. I 
know that the soldiers of the other nations probably 
say, and a great many of them probably think, the 
same thing with regard to their own existence. This 
does not alter the fact, however, that we are actually 
fighting for our national life." 

That in November, 1914, Germany, through the 
varying fortunes of war, had been placed in a posi- 



ALTRUISM, DEMOCRACY AND ARMS 163 

tion in wkich. a defensive struggle for continued 
national existence had become necessary is not to be 
denied, but the general contention made by the 
Crown Prince in behalf of his country must stand 
or fall npon the answer to this query: "Was the 
national life of Germany in jeopardy when the 
Kaiser's troops entered Luxembourg on August 2, 
1914?" In a general way, it may be said that to 
the mind of the average American a defensive war is 
justifiable, an offensive war is not. If it had be- 
come necessary, in order that her national existence 
might persist, that Germany in August of the dread 
year 1914 should overrun Belgium, attack France 
and assist Austria in destroying Servia the position 
taken by the Crown Prince, and his fellow-militar- 
ists, is entitled to our sympathetic consideration. 
But, as was said aforetime, "facts are stubborn 
things." All efforts to persuade America to believe 
that from the outset of the war of wars Germany 
acted wholly upon the defensive, desirous only of 
maintaining her national existence, have proved un- 
availing. That posterity will reverse the verdict 
given by the people of the United States against 
GeiTnany during the autumn of 1914 is not at all 
probable. In fact it is as unthinkable as the pos- 
sibility that coming generations will vindicate the 
Old Man of the Mountains of Syria for giving 
hasheesh to the youth of his martial tribe that they 



164 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

might fight, with the drug-begotten courage of fanat- 
icism, against the Christian crusaders seeking the 
Holy Sepulchre. 

The unjustifiability, the suddenness, the cumula- 
tive horrors of the war of wars have terrified and 
appalled mankind and have turned every neutral 
country on earth into a tempestuous debating society 
hotly discussing the one problem upon the solution 
of which the future of civilization seems to depend. 
Is war a necessary and inevitable evil, the roots of 
which are inherent in human nature, or is it an 
artificial institution that can be rendered obsolete 
by man's ingenuity in overcoming the obstacles that 
confront him in his struggle upward from cave-man 
to superman ? Above the uproar of this widespread 
discussion, through which pierce the hysterical voice 
of the ultra-pacificist and the harsh tones of the 
alarmist who cries out wildly for a larger army and 
a stronger navy, can be heard the calm counsels of 
common sense asserting that the fundamental ques- 
tion at issue cannot be answered at present and 
that it behooves a sane and reasonable nation to 
look existing facts squarely in the face and to see 
to it, at the least, that the governmental appropria- 
tions its legislators make for the needs of the army 
and navy shall be honestly and wisely expended. To 
the people of the United States, shocked by the hor- 
rors of a world-war that might so easily have been 



ALTRUISM, DEMOCRACY AND ARMS 165 

avoided, came the startling revelation, in the fall 
of 1914, that the efficiency of our navy, demonstrated 
a few years ago to an astonished world by our battle- 
fleet's circumnavigation of the globe, had been, some- 
what mysteriously, destroyed. An administration to 
which target-practice of any kind was obnoxious had 
managed to weaken our naval arm at a time when, 
above all others in our history, its power was of 
value to strengthen the influence over a warring 
world of the most influential of all existing neutral 
nations. Deny it though the extremists among the 
pacificists may, the fact remains, at this stage in man- 
kind's slow development, that preparedness for war 
is frequently the best guarantee for peace. 

It is a more or less open secret among those 
Americans who know the inside facts regarding 
our recent national history that when our impres- 
sive and highly efficient battle-fleet sailed to the Far 
East some years ago our relations with Japan were 
strained to an extent not fully appreciated by the 
public at large. Whether hospitality or hostility 
awaited our fleet in Japanese harbors was a question 
that no one in authority at Washington could an- 
swer. But the exhibition our battleships gave in the 
Ear East of inherent power and immediate pre- 
paredness settled the issue of war or peace, and a 
crisis that might easily have involved us in hostili- 
ties with Japan was safely passed. It has recently 



166 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

come to light that one of the most vociferous and 
prominent of the ultra-pacificists in this country has 
both his city and his country house protected by 
burglar-alarms. He believes in defending his own 
property from attack through the agency of the po- 
lice. But he refuses to recognize or admit the fact 
that our army and navy hold the same relation to our 
national possessions that the police-station occupies 
toward his own individual belongings. The circum- 
navigation of the globe by a powerful naval force, 
or a parade through city streets of a well-drilled and 
efficient regiment of police, may testify to the un- 
pleasant truth that this is still a lawless and far from 
wholly civilized world, but their restraining effects' 
upon disturbers of the peace are of more practical 
value than all the salt the pacificists have yet been 
able to cast upon the elusive tail of the millennium. 
Of all the smaller powers in Europe to-day there 
is but one that occupies a position that is safe and, 
in a sense, enviable. Switzerland's long existence 
as a successful republic makes the national life of 
the United States appear like an experiment in self- 
government of a duration comparatively insignifi- 
cant. The exploits of William Tell, the Swiss George 
Washing-ton, date back to the early years of the four- 
teenth century. Since that period Switzerland has 
been to the world in a small way what the United 
States are to-day on a large scale, a peace-loving 



ALTRUISM, DEMOCRACY AND ARMS 167 

democracy, frequently threatened by war and now 
and then involved therein. On August 3, 1914, the 
Swiss Federal Council ordered the mobilization of 
the entire army of Switzerland as a precautionary 
measure. Two days after this order had been issued, 
the little republic had 300,000 men at their posts 
ready to defend the neutrality of their country. Says 
Mr. M. Widner, an authority on the subject: "The 
accomplishment of this feat won the admiration of 
even the much engaged belligerent nations, for it 
furnished eloquent proof of Swiss military discipline 
and efficiency. Had the Swiss mobilization been 
carried out with less promptitude it is very doubtful 
whether the territory of the little Alpine Republic 
would not have been invaded right at the beginning 
of German-French hostilities." 

Let us suppose, for the purposes of comparison, 
that Switzerland, at the outbreak of the war of 
wars, had been for several years under the influence 
of a pacificist administration, during which period 
the efiiciency of the army had been destroyed, its 
modern rifles figuratively turned into pruning-hooks 
or, perhaps, Alpine stocks. Suppose the Swiss had 
been so impressed by the contention that warfare and 
democracies have nothing in common, that prepared- 
ness for hostilities merely invites hostilities, that the 
Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments become 
dead letters wherever the manual of arms is in use — 



168 THE GAME OF EMPIKES 

so impressed that they had joined with their tem- 
porary leaders in turning an effective defensive force 
into an impotent shadow of an army, in what condi- 
tion would Switzerland be to-day? As it is, the 
martial strength of the doughty little republic has 
placed it in a position to serve a high purpose to an 
afflicted world. It has become an asylum for the 
oppressed, a white refuge for fugitives from the 
scarlet zones of relentless war. The oldest democ- 
racy on earth, because of martial strength main- 
tained only for defensive purposes, is the one spot 
in Europe to-day upon which American eyes can 
rest with thorough satisfaction and approval. Swit- 
zerland's altruism, democracy and preparedness to 
repel invasion combine to offer to the United States 
an example worthy at this crisis of our imitation. 

We may claim, of course, that as a nation we are 
as altruistic and democratic as the Swiss. Fur- 
thermore, we are told, we are geographically in a 
much safer position than the Alpine Republic, sur- 
rounded, as it is, on all sides by warlike nations 
inclined, in some cases, to look upon solemn inter- 
national treaties as mere scraps of paper. We are 
assured by alleged experts that invasion of this coun- 
try by a foreig-n foe is to-day a physical impossi- 
bility. But woe shall- come to us if we trust im- 
plicitly in these blind leaders of the blind. The 
time may be nearer than seems probable at this 



ALTRUISM, DEMOCRACY AN^D ARMS 169 

moment when mankind shall have become suffi- 
ciently civilized to do away with war, but before 
that period arrives the United States, unless all 
historical precedents are misleading and all warn- 
ings of the present mere illusions, must confront, 
armed for conflict, certain prospective enemies who 
are fundamentally antagonistic to us, to our ideals 
and to our possession of various outlying places in 
the sun. What is Armageddon, now that it has 
been revealed to us in all its horrors? It is an 
armed conflict between Progress and Reaction, be- 
tween the ideals of Autocracy and the ideals of 
Democracy. That the great war of 1914 will put 
an end forever to the gigantic struggle between two 
radically antagonistic forces influencing the fate of 
nations is beyond the bounds of possibility. The 
powers that distrust, defy and would destroy democ- 
racy die hard and before they pass from earth for- 
ever will they not shoot at least one Parthian arrow 
at a nation that has denied from its birth the basic 
propositions upon which the Gods of Reaction base 
their claims to earthly domination? The dreamer 
who turns an American sword into a pruning-hook 
at this crisis in the career of mankind may receive 
a crown in the life to come but what he deserves 
on earth is — well, to put it mildly, a course in 
recent history. 



CHAPTEE X 



THE HEAD USHEE AND HIS ASSISTANT 



CHAPTER X 

THE HEAD USHEE AND HIS ASSISTANT 

Shakespeare was not as competent a dramatist 
as George Bernard Shaw. We have Shaw's word 
for this. But either Shakespeare or Shaw is a 
better playwright than the gods Jupiter, Mars, JSTep- 
tune and Terminus who collaborate in writing the 
comedies and tragedies for which they make our 
planet the stage and the nations the dramatis per- 
sonce. When they set out in the year 1914 to pre- 
sent for the first time upon the earth a colossal 
world-tragedy, for which the nations taking the lead- 
ing roles had been rehearsing for generations, they 
found themselves in possession of splendid material 
for obtaining dramatic effects but as the play pro- 
gTessed it was seen that the collaborating deities 
responsible for it lacked the technic that their ex- 
perience should have provided. The tragedy was 
impressive in its content, its bloody effects were 
startling, but it was marred by anti-climaxes and 
at times, to the eyes of the spectators, the action 
dragged tediously. It became evident after a time 

173 



174 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

that while the vagaries of man as an individual, or 
in the mass, might provide the gods with the raw 
material of drama it was beyond the power of the 
celestial playwrights to give an artistic sequence to 
the events of the world-tragedy they were staging 
in so crude a way that it was constantly sinking to 
the lowest type of melodrama. The music of the 
spheres may be above criticism, but it is certain that 
the play-writing of the gods is distinctly amateurish. 
Upon the peak of Olympus the slaughter of a mil- 
lion men may score a hit, as the phrase goes, but 
when the effect produced is immediately followed 
by the slaughter of another million the gods betray 
themselves as bunglers, ignorant of the first princi- 
ples of dramatic construction. 

When the Congress of the United States convened 
at Washington early in December of 1914 the. great- 
est of all world tragedies had been occupying the 
earth's stage for over four months. The best that 
could be said of it at that time was that as a spec- 
tacle it had been the most impressive that mankind 
had yet produced for the entertainment of the Olym- 
pians. The piece had been designed to display to 
the audience the love of the villains and the heroes 
for the goddess Commerce, who is a coy heroine, 
bestowing favors only upon the cleverest or the 
strongest, and who is used to the sight of blood 
and is not shocked thereat. As the tragedy devel- 



HEAD USHER AND HIS ASSISTANT 175 

oped, the villains openly voicing their belief in the 
doctrine that Commerce should belong to those pow- 
erful enough to capture her, and the heroes express- 
ing lofty, unselfish and altruistic sentiments in the 
endeavor to appeal to their auditors' sympathies, it 
had become apparent that even the noncombatant 
audience was to play a leading part in the drama 
with which the high gods were glutting their appe- 
tite for gory exhibitions. 

The Head Usher in that part of the auditorium 
in which sat the United States naturally called the 
attention of his nation, through the medium of his 
message to Congress, to the world tragedy upon 
which the horrified gaze of neutral nations had been 
fixed since the signal for the curtain-raising had been 
given by the pistol shot of Garvilo Prinzip. The 
Head Usher assured his people that they occupied the 
best seats in the house and were in a position to 
watch the play calmly, and to derive from it various 
lessons worth even a truly good nation's acquisition. 
Faithful to his obligations as a Head Usher, he 
warned his hearers against the dangers of panic and 
chided those who might be inclined to yell "Fire" 
when the only conflagration in sight was across the 
foot-lights. "We are at peace with all the world," 
he proclaimed impressively. "No one who speaks 
counsel based on fact or drawn from a just and 
candid interpretation of realities can say that there 



176 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

is reason to fear that from any quarter our inde- 
pendence or the integrity of our territory is threat- 
ened." In effect the Head Usher advised his people 
to keep their seats, watch attentively the world 
tragedy being enacted, and gain from what they 
looked upon a new horror of war and the conviction 
that the play-writing gods on Olympus would never 
cast the United States as either a hero or a villain 
in any of earth's future bloody melodramas. But, 
with startling and incredible inconsistency, the elo- 
quent Head Usher went on to point out to his audi- 
tors the fascinations, graces and charms of the very 
heroine whose allurements had involved the dramatis 
personce of the play upon which he was commenting 
in the toils from which tragedy springs. 

"To speak plainly," remarked the Head Usher, 
turning his back to the stage, "we have grossly erred 
in the way in which we have stunted and hindered 
the development of our merchant marine. And now, 
when we need ships, we have not got them." In 
other words, for the pursuit of the heroine. Com- 
merce, for love of whom the leading actors in the 
European tragedy are sending before our eyes mil- 
lions of supers to death, we as a nation are unpre- 
pared. It is incumbent upon us to kidnap the god- 
dess at once, while her other lovers are engaged in 
the grewsome occupation of maiming or destroying 
each other, confident in our greater worthiness as a 



HEAD USHER AND HIS ASSISTANT 177 

suitor and in our geographical freedom from peril 
from jealous rivals. The words of the Head Usher 
were received with considerable applause by a na- 
tion to which the varied charms of Commerce have 
always appealed. There was indeed in the hearts 
of a majority of his audience a feeling of regret 
and shame for the fact that we had allowed our 
ships to rot at their anchorage while Fate was pre- 
paring an opportunity for a people, once notable 
for maritime achievements, to again become argo- 
nauts sailing forth in quest of the golden fleece. 
There was among the many to whom the Head Usher 
addressed his words of worldly wisdom a large per- 
centage to whom came the determination to take 
advantage of the splendid possibilities for prosperity 
that the overthrow of European civilization offered 
to the energy and ambition of the New World. The 
tragedy of the Vistula and the Seven Rivers gave 
to the tired business man of America thrills that 
he had never known before and stirred in his soul 
a patriotic enthusiasm for demonstrating to the 
world that a nation of shopkeepers is not always 
to be caught napping. Anti-militarism! That was 
the seductive catchword that would appeal to Com- 
merce, the faultless heroine who had been outraged 
and betrayed by the protagonists of the European 
tragedy. "Our swords have grown rusty. As a 
nation we have never admired them in their sym- 



178 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

bolic significance. Now is the time ripe for turning 
them into pruning-hooks and reaping for ourselves 
the harvests that our afflicted rivals have been forced 
to neglect!" 

But there was one sentence in the Head Usher's 
address to the representatives of the nation that 
sent a chill of apprehension through the minds of 
the more thoughtful of his hearers. "Now when we 
need ships," he had said, "we have not got them." 
As a people, he intimated, we had been lacking 
in foresight. What we had once possessed in abun- 
dance, namely, well-manned and efficient merchant 
vessels, we had lost through an indifference to our 
higher commercial welfare that seems to be in the 
retrospect somewhat inexplicable and wholly deplor- 
able. Supposing, reflected a good many very wide- 
awake Americans, the Head Usher had been obliged 
to say to us: "Now, when we need battleships — or 
cruisers or submarines or coast defenses — we have 
not got them." "So much the better," our good- 
hearted and well-meaning pacificists would answer. 
"If we aren't armed, we cannot fight. Love is the 
strongest force in the world. Let us meet our antag- 
onists, from whatsoever direction they may menace 
us, with outstretched hands, gentle words and earn- 
est assurances of our distingTiished consideration." 
As that inspired advocate of peace, Mr. Andrew 
Carnegie, predicts, our shamefaced foes would at 



HEAD USHER AND HIS ASSISTANT 179 

once throw down their diabolical weapons, compre- 
hend for the first time the error of their aggressive 
ways, and implore us to absorb them in that blissful 
and immaculate higher civilization that makes the 
United States the one desirable haven upon earth 
for the oppressed of all nations. A sense of humor, 
the most enlightening of all mental gifts, is never 
possessed, no matter how intellectual he may be in 
a general way, by an ultra-pacificist. 

The Head Usher's assurance to the people in the 
auditoriima that the world tragedy upon which they 
were gazing should not fill them with apprehension 
nor cause them to examine too closely the theater's 
safety devices was echoed presently by his Chief 
Assistant, whose ideal of statesmanship consists in 
preaching the beatitudes and the ten commandments 
to a world the larger portion of which seems at pres- 
ent to have forgotten the existence of these sacred 
precepts. The contention of the Chief Assistant was 
to the effect that if an external foe menaced the 
audience a million men, technically ignorant but 
heroically self-sacrificing, would respond at once to 
the Head Usher's call for help, the latter being en- 
gaged upon the lofty endeavor of conferring so many 
benefits upon the people in the auditorium that a 
large percentage of them would gladly offer their 
lives on behalf of their flag and country. Is it not 
more than probable that the credulity of posterity 



180 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

will be severely taxed when it reads tlie alleged 
utterances of the Head Usher and his Chief Assist- 
ant at the present crisis in the history of this na- 
tion? And that is by no means the worst of the 
situation by which the United States is confronted 
to-day. If coming generations of Americans have 
nothing more to bring against the present adminis- 
tration than its addiction to the phraseology of a 
Pecksniff and the mock-heroic deeds of a Tartarin 
our descendants will be in better case than now seems 
to be at all certain. But a chill of apprehension is 
felt by many Americans, who comprehend some- 
thing of the full significance of existing world prob- 
lems, when they realize that at the most perilous 
crisis in our history our foreign relations are in the 
control of men who, however admirable they may 
be personally and however noble may be the mo- 
tives by which they are actuated, are capable of 
dangerous inconsistencies in their handling of prob- 
lems that arise in our intercourse with other nations. 
To make a war against Mexico which was not wholly 
war in the endeavor to maintain a peace which was 
not wholly peace was to exhibit upon the part of 
the administration a mingling of fimmess and weak- 
ness, a conflict of purpose, a lack of logical con- 
sistency, that could result only in ultimate disaster. 
Among the many minor problems that must con- 
front the historians of the future, in dealing with 



HEAD USHER AND HIS ASSISTANT 181 

what are to us recent events, the occupation of Vera 
Cruz by American troops and their subsequent with- 
drawal will be one of the most insolvable. They 
may even express their mingled amusement and 
amazement at the fact that an unprecedented com- 
bination of tragic occurrences in the world at large 
had placed an administration that had made a pitiful 
bungle of its diplomatic activities, in more than one 
direction, in an attitude of watchful waiting for 
the time when the warring powers of a distracted 
world should call upon it to undertake the most 
difficult and gigantic task of arbitration that the 
criminal vagaries of man's recurrent militarism had 
ever rendered necessary. Men who had found the 
internal squabbles of Mexico too complicated for 
their abilities as peacemakers were, in all probability, 
to be called upon to adjudicate eventually an inter- 
national quarrel the like of which the world had not 
hitherto known. The gods who had staged the 
world tragedy of 1914 seemed to be planning to fol- 
low their bloody war-play by a diplomatic farce 
comedy. Satiated with horrors, the Olympians 
craved a chance to laugh. 

The effect of the Head Usher's address to his 
audience was not wholly satisfactory to him or to his 
Chief Assistant. Of a sudden it seemed as if prac- 
tically all the people of the United States, to use a 
bit of slang, had come from Missouri. They were 



182 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

not panic-stricken by the hideous melodrama that 
they had been watching on the European stage, but 
they desired to be shown at once how, under certain 
imaginable circumstances, their country was to pro- 
tect itself from possible efforts upon the part of an 
aggressive antagonist to take advantage, in the near 
or distant future, of our exposed position, naval un- 
preparedness and habitual military weakness. By 
the pacificists of the nation, the curiosity of the gen- 
eral public regarding these matters was declared to 
be untimely, ill-advised and tending ultimately to 
an apparent attitude upon our part toward war that 
might eventually invite war. They refused to admit 
the existence of the gulf that yawns between a police- 
man and a gunman. They denied the seemingly self- 
evident fact that a deadly weapon is a Dr. Jekyll or 
a Mr. Hyde according to the purpose for which 
it is employed. The right of a householder to de- 
fend his home from a burglar they admitted, but 
the obligation of a nation to arm itself against pos- 
sible invasion they denied. 

We have seen how Hereditary Autocracy had been 
sufficiently powerful in the twentieth century to 
bring about the greatest war in history. We have 
seen how in 1914 despotism had prevailed over 
democracy in Europe to the end that millions of men 
should perish on the battlefield. The inexcusable 
criminality of those responsible for the cataclysm had 



HEAD USHER A^B HIS ASSISTANT 183 

both appalled and angered the people of the United 
States. More than ever before had War become ob- 
noxious to us, and forms of government that ren- 
dered the will of the people negligible at great crises 
repellent. It vt^as not an opportune moment psycho- 
logically for office-holders, temporarily occupying the 
high places at "Washington, to attempt to balk the 
will of the American people. A peace-loving nation, 
generously endowed with common sense, looked out 
upon a warring world, put back indefinitely in its 
progress toward the millennium, and demanded to 
know at once how the many millions it had been 
taxed for national defense had been expended. Was 
there a foundation in fact for the assertions of the 
alarmists to the effect that our navy had deteriorated, 
our army was hopelessly inadequate, our ammuni- 
tion depleted to the vanishing point and our coast 
and harbor defenses either non-existent or obsolete? 
The American people were willing to admit their 
Head Usher's premise that they were at the moment 
at peace with all the world, but they found it hard 
to accept the implications thrown out that we had 
no special reason to anticipate trouble in the future. 
Perhaps no nation that ever existed is so quick to 
forget the significant episodes in its history as we 
Americans, who possess as a people both the virtues 
and the faults characteristic of youth. To the young 
the present and the future possess a fascination not 



184 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

exercised by the past. Nevertheless the catastrophe 
that had befallen Europe recalled to the minds of 
the present generation of Americans various unpleas- 
ant revelations that had come to them, in recent 
years, of our historic tendency to bungle our mili- 
tary operations whenever a sudden crisis has made 
them inevitable. "Pro Bono Publico/' who wields a 
trenchant pen at times, wrote as follows to an in- 
fluential metropolitan newspaper: 

"In the war of 1812 the United States had great 
numbers under arms when the British, with only 
about 1,500 men, captured and burned Washington. 
It is admitted that the war of 1861 could have been 
put down at the battle of Bull Run with about 5,000 
trained regTilars. The Spanish- American war was a 
disgTace to us. How many thousands died in the 
United States from neglect, starvation and disease ? 
What about Shafter's army trying to land at San- 
tiago without the aid of small boats, and why did we 
not have even a military map of the surrounding 
country ? How many know that hundreds died after 
the battle of San Juan Hill because we had not doc- 
tors, blankets, whisky enough, or even the bare neces- 
sities of life? In the recent mobilization of troops 
on the American border it took us nearly three weeks 
to assemble 16,000 men, and what are 16,000 ? l^ot 
sufficient to carry water for the Allies." 

When a Japanese army was dispatched to Corea 



HEAD USHER AND HIS ASSISTANT 185 

some years ago, its officers, both commissioned and 
noncommissioned, received a gift of silk handker- 
chiefs from the Mikado. If one of these officers 
happened to be captured by the enemy nothing tes- 
tifying to Japanese efficiency was to be found upon 
his person. But if his captors had taken the pre- 
caution to plunge his silk handkerchief into a pail 
of water they would have found that upon both sides 
of the Mikado's gift were inscribed detailed military 
maps of Corea, furnishing to an invader every item 
of geographical information necessary for aggressive 
celerity. 

There are those who assert that permanent mili- 
tary efficiency, even though our people demanded it, 
is not possible under our American form of govern- 
ment. If this be true, the outlook for the future of 
the United States is not as bright as it should be. 
But we have acquired the ingenuity, self-restraint 
and common sense necessary for applying efficiency 
to various lines of commercial, industrial and manu- 
facturing endeavor. The genius of our inventors 
has made modern warfare the diabolically devastating 
thing that it is. Can it be possible that at some 
future international crisis, when our very existence 
as a nation may be in jeopardy, a governmental 
fabric the product of American originality, idealism 
and practical initiative, a fabric that has withstood 
the external and internal shocks of a century's cru- 



186 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

cial tests, shall prove inadequate to the demands made 
upon it ? The answer to this question depends upon 
whether we as a people succumb eventually to the 
influence of rainbow-chasing visionaries or give heed 
to the pertinent warnings of clear-eyed statesmen 
who look out upon this chaotic, blood-stained modem 
world with a gaze that comprehends both the mean- 
ing of the present and the menaces of the future. 



CHAPTER XI 



THE PEACE THAT NEVER WAS 



CHAPTER XI 

THE PEACE THAT NEVEE WAS 

Germany, Austria and Turkey! How could the 
most deluded adherent to the cause of German Mili- 
tarism imagine that a triple alliance actually rank 
with the odor of all that is most offensive in reac- 
tionary traditions and ideals could win the sympathy 
of any large number of Americans? Kaiser, Em- 
peror and Sultan — behold a trio whose credentials 
we refuse to recognize, whose right to rule is based 
upon propositions our national founders denied and 
who represent to our minds not modernity but 
mediaevalism ! It has been pointed out to us that 
the Allies, in arms against this unprogressive trinity, 
pay homage to a Czar, a Mikado and several Kings 
and are no more entitled, therefore, to the good 
wishes of the American people than their opponents. 
This contention is not altogether unreasonable, but 
it was not effective in overcoming the inclination of 
the average American, from the very outset of the 
war of wars, to desire, despite our technical neutral- 
ity as a nation, the final overthrow of a triple com- 

189 



190 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

bination whose success was essential to the eventual 
establishment of German world-dominion. 

By the middle of December, 1914, it seemed im- 
probable that the dream of universal conquest the 
mental hasheesh injected into the minds of Germans 
by the writings of Treitschke, Bemhardi and others 
had begotten could ever become a reality. The Allies 
were regaining ground they had lost in France, Bel- 
giimi and Alsace, the Russians, despite serious blun- 
ders and defeats, were holding their own against the 
Germans and their allies in Poland and Galicia, the 
Servians were gaining victory after victory over the* 
Austrians, and Turkey was doing little, if anything, 
to place Deutsches uher Alles. The combined fleets 
of England and Japan had put a check to German 
aggression on the high seas, and the Kaiser's colonial 
possessions had been snatched from his grasp. That 
the severe illness that came to His Majesty early 
in December was accompanied by extreme mental 
depression is not at all astonishing. That von Kluck, 
not many weeks agone, had actually knocked at the 
gates of Paris must have seemed to the fevered 
Kaiser like a misrepresentation of delirium. 

Meanwhile the neutral nations of the world were 
pondering deeply many problems bearing upon the 
immediate future. It had begTin to look as if the 
menace of German Militarism, iconoclastic though it 
had been in its recent manifestation, was no longer 



THE PEACE THAT NEVER WAS 191 

a threat and peril to the world at large, that its most 
devastating effects might still be confined to unhappy 
Belgium. The outcome of events, however, had led 
to an increased interest, to the minds of all thought- 
ful observers, in the possibilities of the future as 
that future should be influenced by the final success 
in the war of wars of one antagonist or the other. 
That a struggle of such stupendous magnitude could 
continue indefinitely was of course impossible. 

"Whatever principles may govern individual 
friendships," says the late Professor Cramb, "alli- 
ances between nations and States are governed by 
self-interest only; they are valid only so long as 
mutual fears or mutual desires persist in equal force. 
For the friendship of nations is an empty name; 
peace is at best a truce on the battlefield of Time; 
the old myth or the old history of the struggle for 
existence is behind us, but the struggle for power — 
who is to assign bounds to its empire, or invent an 
instrument for measuring its intensity ?" 

"The friendship of nations is an empty name!" 
Is the present apparent friendship between England 
and Russia, between England and France, between 
England and Japan anything more than this, any- 
thing more than an empty name ? Those American 
day-dreamers who see in the probable elimination of 
German Militarism as a permanently disturbing in- 
fluence in international politics the possibility of a 



192 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

lasting world-peace may live long enough to realize 
that "the struggle for power," in some pernicious 
form or other, is forever making mischief in a world 
that is fundamentally much less highly civilized 
than it appeared to be before that enlightening month 
of July, 1914. Of course some time in the near 
future some city, small or great — possibly Washing- 
ton — is to become associated for all time with a 
peace treaty of historic importance. It will assume 
a prominent place upon that list upon which are 
now to be found the names of Utrecht, Ghent, 
Amiens, Berlin, London, Portsmouth, IST. H., and 
other centers at which arbitrators have gathered in 
the past that a new treaty might come as a poultice 
to heal the wounds of recent warfare. And as the 
war of wars has made all former wars seem com- 
paratively insignificant, so will the peace conference 
to which it leads become the most important tribunal 
of the kind the world has yet seen. More clearly 
than ever before, the absurdity of the methods of 
procedure that nations have adopted in their erratic 
vibrations from peace to war and from war to peace 
will be made manifest to the eyes of men. 

Diplomacy breaks down, war ensues and eventu- 
ally demonstrates anew its futility, and arbitration 
becomes the last resort, instead of the first, of the 
belligerents. This ridiculous process, practically as 
old as so-called civilization, is not creditable to the 



THE PEACE THAT IN'EVER WAS 193 

boasted ingenuity of man. We admit tliat diplomacy 
lias never been effective in preventing vp^ar, that war 
has never succeeded in vindicating its reasonable- 
ness as a method of settling international quarrels, 
and that peace treaties have never been of any- 
thing more than temporary value in checking the 
predatory inclinations of the more powerful nations. 
The year 1914 witnessed the most unexpected and 
deplorable collapse of diplomacy in the history of 
the race. It was followed by the most stupid, unjus- 
tifiable, bloodiest, most devastating and all-embracing 
war by which our planet has ever been reddened. 
The inherent futility of both diplomacy and war 
had been again demonstrated to a weary and dis- 
heartened world. Was it to witness anew the cus- 
tomary absurd sequel to an international war, 
namely, a peace congress at which nothing is accom- 
plished save a readjustment of the boundary stones 
of Terminus, in the baseless hope that that malicious 
god may eventually abandon forever the game he 
plays to make occasions for Mars ? 

There is at least one encouraging feature of the 
war of wars that suggests the possibility that, de- 
spite the struggle for power whose bounds and in- 
tensity Professor Cramb despaired of measuring, the 
approaching effort of Civilization to find a perma- 
nent safeguard against recurrent warfare may not 
be altogether futile. We have seen an alliance be- 



194 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

tween a large number of nations whose ideals, in- 
terests, forms of government, and even racial charac- 
teristics, were fundamentally diverse made effective 
in the complicated activities of war. If, for exam- 
ple, Japan and Russia, formerly at war with each 
other, can forget their past differences and fight to- 
gether for the same cause and against the same foes 
is it not possible, if the people of those countries 
had their way, that they might unite for permanent 
peace instead of for occasional war? The peace 
congress that is to follow the war of wars must 
recognize the fact, of course, that the friendship of 
nations — that is, of governments, not peoples — is an 
empty name. It must devote itself to the task of 
analyzing and comprehending the "struggle for 
power" that underlies all wars. It must turn a deaf 
ear to those clamorous pacificists who will point to 
the recent overthrow of the pillars of European 
civilization and assert that war, like the frog that 
overinflated itself, has destroyed itself through ex- 
cess. To thoroughly understand, and to find some 
method of controlling, the seemingly universal appe- 
tite of ascendant states for increasing ascendency 
is the stupendous task that must be assumed by a 
peace congress whose deliberations will be of a sig- 
nificance unparalleled in the grimly interesting 
record of international debates resulting heretofore 
in only temporary pacificism. 



THE PEACE THAT NEVER WAS 195 

Ex-President Koosevelt, who, among other things 
well worth being, is a constructive statesman, has 
comprehended in all their bearings the difficulties of 
the problem that confronts the world's peacemakers 
and has suggested tentatively a possible solution of 
the vital question that arises from the eternal strug- 
gle for power, the question upon a successful answer 
to which depends the future trend of civilization. 
International agi'eements have been shown to be, for 
generations past, of no permanent value as safe- 
guards against war. The struggle for power is as 
destructive to the good faith of nations as is so 
frequently the competition for wealth to the honor 
of individual men. In the world of business the 
penalties prescribed by law for the violation of legal 
contracts are necessary, in the present state of civi- 
lization, for the protection of commerce from a con- 
dition of chaos. When sometime in the dim and 
distant future every man's word shall be as good as 
his bond these penalties may pass into innocuous 
desuetude, but for the present, as in the past, punish- 
ments and forfeits are necessary to compel the un- 
principled to fulfill their signed obligations. That 
England in 1914 entered into the war of wars to 
emphasize the sanctity of an international agree- 
ment does not alter the fact that Germany wantonly 
and cynically abrogated that same agreement on the 
ground that it was a mere scrap of paper, of no 



196 THE GAME OF EMPIKES 

significance to a signatory impelled by necessity. If 
the peace agreements between the warring powers 
that have made the year 1914 the bloodiest a bel- 
ligerent world has ever known shall carry with them 
no other guarantees of fulfillment than have been 
incorporated in the international treaties of the past, 
the price in blood and treasure that mankind has 
been recently called upon to pay will have been ex- 
pended in vain. The war of wars has demonstrated 
the fact that the genius of man has been successful 
in constantly raising the art of human butchery to 
higher planes of achievement. Will the sequel prove 
that that same genius is incompetent to give to peace 
treaties the same measure of efficiency that it has 
provided for modern weapons of war? Is progress 
forever to prevail in the sanguinary realm of de- 
struction and reaction in the domain in which the 
activities of peace conferences prevail ? If the cata- 
clysm of 1914 has taught mankind a much needed 
lesson, if, as the optimistic assert, civilization and 
progress are not mere chimeras, the most important 
outcome of the war of wars must be the discovery and 
enforcement of some method of making an interna- 
tional agreement binding upon all the nations enter- 
ing into it. In other words, the struggle for power 
between the rival nations of the earth must be not 
only measured but controlled, it must become, as has 
electricity, not a menace to, but the servant of, man. 



THE PEACE THAT NEVER WAS 197 

The late Professor Cramb implied that this struggle 
for power the ingenuity of man could find no way 
to dominate. To the more optimistic mind of ex- 
President Poosevelt a solution to this most insistent 
and important of all human problems seems to be 
within the range of human attainment. In a pre- 
vious chapter it has been shown that the destructive- 
ness of modern warfare is almost wholly due to the 
ingenuity of American inventors. Do we not there- 
fore as a nation owe a tremendous debt to civiliza- 
tion that can bo paid only by the genius of American 
statesmanship giving to an afflicted world some 
method of international arbitration that shall bo as 
novel and effective in making peace permanent as 
"Yankee notions" have been in rendering war hide- 
ous ? Posterity might forgive us for Maxim's noise- 
less gun if Roosevelt's international police project 
should prove to be successful. But if governments 
alone, not the governed, are represented at the great- 
est of peace congresses, no permanent advance will 
be made by humanity. 

Of the three significant phases that characterize 
any international conflict, namely, the efforts of 
diplomacy preceding the outbreak of hostilities, the 
war itself, and the arbitration that follows it, only 
two are comprehensible to the calm mind of a thinl^er 
unheatcd by the passions that war begets. The activ- 
ities of diplomacy and of peace congresses come 



198 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

within the scope of the average understanding, but 
there is an eternal, hideous, ghastly mystery inherent 
in warfare that mocks at all efforts of the human 
intellect to fathom it. During the past few gen- 
erations there has come into general use a phrase 
that at its advent seemed to possess at least the 
shadow of a raison d'etre. We have been accustomed 
to speak of "civilized warfare" as a comparatively 
modem institution that illustrated, by comparison 
with the lawless activities from which it originated, 
the gradual progress of the race upward, an inclina- 
tion upon the part of man when he reverted to sav- 
agery to carry down with him a few of the praise- 
worthy characteristics he had so painfully acquired 
in his struggle toward the higher planes of endeavor. 
Civilized warfare was in theory a method whereby 
men could carry on the bloody game of human butch- 
ery according to generally accepted rules that were 
supposed to eliminate a few of the horrors that traced 
their origin to the diabolical depravity of our remote 
ancestors, who are known to have been merciless 
toward innocent noncombatants. The fact seems to 
be that man is a self-deceived hypocrite. He has 
never been, so to speak, man enough to choose be- 
tween civilization and warfare, to frankly acknowl- 
edge the inherent antagonism between human butch- 
ery and human advancement, but his efforts have 
been turned toward a compromise between the two 



THE PEACE THAT NEVER WAS 199 

that becomes grimly ridiculous when put to a crucial 
test. This crucial test was provided in the year of 
Our Lord 1914 by the war of wars and to a horri- 
fied race was revealed the damning fact that the 
efforts of man's ingenuity to throw so-called civilized 
safeguards about the activities of belligerent nations 
had been tragically futile. Among the various 
scraps of paper that had been thrown into the world's 
rubbish heap was one upon which had been recently 
inscribed The Hague Conventions. 

Though the non-existence of so-called civilized 
warfare came as a shock and a surprise to deluded 
optimists, no astonishment at the fact that war is, 
more than ever heretofore, the fine art of demon- 
strating the inherent savagery of man was felt by 
the Militarists of Germany. There was not, there 
had never been, any altruistic nonsense about their 
War Lord. To the German expeditionary force 
sent to China in July, 1900, the Kaiser had delivered 
the following exhortation : "When you meet the foe 
you will defeat him. ISTo quarter will bo given, no 
prisoners will be taken. Let all who fall into your 
hands be at your mercy. Just as the Huns a thou- 
sand years ago, under the leadership of Attila, gained 
a reputation in virtue of which they still live in 
historical traditions, so may the name of Germany 
become known in such a manner in China that no 
Chinaman will ever again even dare to look askance 



200 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

at a German." In a general order to his troops 
issued at Aix-la-Chapelle on August 19, 1914, the 
Kaiser said: "It is mj Royal and Imperial com- 
mand that you concentrate your energies, for the 
immediate present, upon one single purpose, and 
that is that you address all your skill, and all your 
valor as my soldiers, to exterminate first the treach- 
erous English and to walk over General French's 
contemptible little Army." 

For fourteen years twentieth century civilization 
had been nourishing a viper within its bosom. It 
bore the name German Militarism and its time had 
come to sting the modern world. It waged war 
wantonly, remorselessly, according to the orders is- 
sued by its War Lord. There came a time in the 
early winter of 1914 when women, children, and 
ancient churches in England were subjected to the 
same devastating fury that had had its evil way in 
the preceding Autumn with noncombatant humans 
and harmless cathedrals while the cohorts of German 
culture overran Belgium. As Hugo Mllnsterberg so 
naively remarks, "War is War!" In other words, 
there is no such thing as civilized warfare. 

Are we Americans a nation of dreamers whose vis- 
ions, though radically antagonistic to the chimeras 
that have made German Militarism what it is, are 
leading us astray from the paths that a sane, clear- 
eyed, practical nation should follow? It seems to 



THE PEACE THAT NEVER WAS 201 

be actually incredible that the lessons of the past and 
the warnings of the present should be wholly with- 
out effect upon the minds of a large number of our 
most intelligent fellow-countrymen. That between 
the attitude toward war of a Treitschke on the one 
hand and of a Tolstoi on the other there is a golden 
mean, the reasonable position to be taken under ex- 
isting world conditions by the most peacefully in- 
clined of nations, should be apparent to every thought- 
ful American. Worldwide and permanent peace is 
infinitely preferable to recurrent wars, but the former 
is a dream that can be realized only when universal 
democracy prevails on earth, while the latter remain 
actualities with which even President Wilson and 
Secretary Bryan have been forced to deal. If the 
lofty role of arbitrator to a warring world is to be 
thrust upon the United States it is to be fondly 
hoped that our peacemaking achievements may be of 
more practical and lasting value than any that the 
world has hitherto known, but if we proceed upon 
the basis that the millennium is near at hand for us 
and for the blood-stained nations seeking our good 
offices, the sardonic laughter of the mischief-making 
gods on Olympus will reach our ears. Representa- 
tive Lumpkin, of the Freshwater, Ind., district, re- 
cently congratulated this country from the floor of the 
House upon the fact that in withdrawing our troops 
from the City of Vera Cruz we were setting an ex- 



202 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

ample of altruistic imselfiskness to the warring na- 
tions of Europe that would make upon them a strong 
and uplifting impression. Representative Lumpkin's 
broad and enlightened view of international affairs 
has always aroused the admiration, if not of the na- 
tion at large, at least of his own constituents. But 
for the United States to exercise upon the quarrel- 
some powers of the Old World the influence we should 
be pleased to exert something more is necessarv upon 
our part than a good example. We must admit the 
existence upon earth of what Professor Cramb calls 
"the struggle for power" and, before anything ap- 
proaching permanent world peace can be assured, 
the necessity for its measurement and control. Un- 
less we as a nation possess the courage and common 
sense to look existing world facts squarely in the face 
we must eventually prove unworthy of what appears 
to be at the moment our manifest destiny j< There is, 
we repeat, no such thing as civilized warfare, but 
there is a civilized attitude toward war that inspires 
a nation holding it to refrain always from unjustifi- 
able hostilities though it protects itself, when need 
be, against aggression. And, further, it may be as- 
serted with emphasis that in order to take the high- 
est advantage of a great opportunity that may come 
to the United States as a peacemaker this nation 
should not be merely strong enough to make its wishes 
of importance to the world's Militarists, but it should 



THE PEACE THAT NEVER WAS 203 

insist upon dealing as arbitrator with those most af- 
fected hy war, namely, the peoples of the various 
countries seeking a way through our good offices 
to surcease from conflict. A peace congress at which 
only the opinions and desires of emperors, kings 
and diplomats are in evidence will be as ineffective 
in hastening the glad day of international disarma- 
ment as have been its predecessors. 

The following memorable words from an article 
published in the Atlantic Monthly were written by 
G. Lowes Dickinson, of Kings College, Cambridge, 
England, and are entitled to the widest publicity and 
to the earnest consideration of all of us who still 
hope, despite the depressing effects of recent world 
history, that mankind may yet find a way to make 
peace treaties, through a radical change in their 
sources, effective. Speaking of the future, Dr. Dick- 
inson says: "It can not be molded to any good 
purpose unless the plain men and women, workers 
with their hands and workers with their brains, in 
England and in Germany and in all countries, get 
together and say to the people who have led them into 
this catastrophe, and who will lead them into such 
again, and again, '^o more ! No more ! And never 
again ! You rulers, you soldiers, you diplomats, you 
who through all the long agony of history have con- 
ducted the destinies of mankind and have conducted 
them to hell, we do now repudiate you. Our labor 



204 THE GA:\rE OF EMPIEES 

and our blood have been at your disposal. They 
shall be so no more. You shall not make the peace 
as you have made the war. The Europe that shall 
come out of this v^ar shall be our Europe. And it 
shall be one in which another European war shall 
never be possible.' " 



CHAPTER XII 



CHRISTIANITY AT THE BAR 



CHAPTER XII 

CHEISTIANITY AT THE BAR 

In December, 1914, for the first time since the 
town of Bethlehem, Judaea, had gained immortality, 
the approach of the Savior's birthday created real 
embarrassment throughout all Christendom. In Eu- 
rope Corsica, for the time being, had conquered 
Galilee. It was of no avail for the agitated devout 
to assert that the Christian religion had been instru- 
mental in putting an end to various former evils, in- 
cluding human slavery, belief in witchcraft, the exe- 
cution of conformists or nonconformists, as the case 
might be, and had substituted "civilized" for barbaric 
warfare. For was it not apparent that what the 
world had gained, at least so far as Europe was con- 
cerned, in one direction it had lost in another; that 
the instruments of torture to be found in mediaeval 
dungeons, for example, were crude and ineffectual 
contrivances for inflicting human misery compared 
with German howitzers or French machine-guns? 
Two thousand years ago, roughly speaking, the Christ 
had been tried, condemned and crucified by the Mili- 

207 



208 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

tarists of that period. That Europe might continue 
on Christmas Day, 1914, to render unto Cnesar the 
things that are Caesar's it was essential, for military 
reasons, that no truce be proclaimed on the battle- 
fronts, that the birthday of the Savior be ignored 
both in the trenches and at staff headquarters. 
Christians at war with each other must not pause, 
even for a day, in their efforts to butcher one an- 
other in the name of God, or of Patriotism, or of the 
Kaiser or of the Sanctity of Treaties. Whether 
fighting for the vindication of War as an institution 
or ostensibly to put an end to it for all time, the 
man behind the gun in Europe had the appearance 
on Christmas Day, 1914, of an atavistic reversion, 
butchered or butchering in the trenches to make a 
Roman holiday, a pagan feast of blood that is not of 
Christ but of Ca?sar. 

The war of wars had brought before the judgment- 
seat of a reawakened world every phase of human 
activity to plead for its own vindication. As never 
before in the history of the race Man was questioning 
his own soul. It was as if the image of God and 
the image of Satan had appeared to the world and 
Man interrogated himself as to which of them he the 
more resembled. Christmas Day, 1914, came not as 
an occasion for rejoicing in all Christendom but as 
a time of doubt and questioning, during which 
charges of a sweeping character were brought against 



CHRISTIANITY AT THE BAR 209 

the religion of the Cross from sources which even the 
most bigoted Christian could not afford to ignore. 

"For nineteen hundred years the ethics of Jesus 
of ISTazareth have been in the world," said ex-Presi- 
dent Eliot of Harvard University, "but have had no 
effect to prevent or even reduce the evils of war, 
the greatest of the evils which afflict mankind. The 
ethical doctrines of Christianity in regard to justice, 
humility and mercy have not found expression in 
the relations between Christian nations, whether in 
peace or at war, or indeed in the history of institu- 
tional Christianity itself. At this moment none of 
the Christian churches has had any influence to pre- 
vent the catastrophe which has overtaken Europe. 
Each national church supports the national govern- 
ment and every ruler is as sure of his God's approval 
as ever Israel was of Jehovah's ; and within each na- 
tion all the religions represented unite in the support 
of the national government gone to war." 

That in the realm of law, national and interna- 
tional, there may lie a road that leads eventually to 
world-peace Dr. Eliot suggests, but that the powers 
that be are not at present traveling that road is sadly 
apparent. There is, however, one encouraging fea- 
ture connected with the overwhelming tragedy that 
befell the world in the year of Our Lord 1914. 
Every one of the powers, from Russia the Colossus to 
Montenegro the Pygmy, appears to feel a real sense 



210 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

of shame at its connection with a cataclysm that has 
for a time overthrown modern civilization. As Chris- 
tianity now finds itself on trial on the charge of in- 
efiiciency before a questioning world, so has every 
government involved in the war of wars been brought 
before the bar of nations to answer to an indictment 
affecting its right to continuous existence. Eor they 
all, with one accord, began to make excuse, before 
the great conflict of 1914 was a day old. In a sense 
this apologetic attitude upon the part of the powers 
involved in the war of wars is creditable to human 
nature. That no one nation, or group of nations, is 
willing silently to bear the blame for the overthrow 
of the pillars of European civilization establishes the 
somewhat encouraging fact that Man can not revert 
to the status of Caveman without displaying to a 
shocked and disheartened universe a blush of self- 
reproach. To the charge of treason to the cause of 
civilization each of the powers engaged in the great 
war entered the plea of "not guilty." The fact that 
Vice is willing to pay homage, even if it be nothing 
of more worth than Hypocrisy, to Virtue is an indica- 
tion of the latter's exalted station even in an evil 
world. 

"The War was forced upon us." ISTot one of the 
belligerents fails to make this uncompromising as- 
sertion to a suspicious and outraged bench of the 
neutral nations. Dust-worn diplomatic documents 



CHRISTIANITY AT THE BAR 211 

are unearthed, learned historians become contro- 
vertialists, the intellectual resources of each warring 
power are employed to prove to a censorious world 
that, in the last analysis, the responsibility for the 
most colossal crime ever perpetrated by Man can not 
be attributed to any given gang of international gun- 
men. This splitting of recent historical hairs pos- 
sesses a grim humor to the open mind of an un- 
prejudiced observer but, more important still, it 
proves that the criminals gTiilty of bringing down 
upon the heads of innocent peoples the direst of all 
world-calamities have some shame left, and gaze upon 
the horrors they have begotten with full appreciation 
of the punishment they deserve and a firm intention 
of escaping that punishment if they can. ''We main- 
tained constantly increasing armaments only for pro- 
tective purposes," plead all the defendants with one 
voice, and in making this plea they admit that this 
war of wars, to which we Americans object as a 
wholly unjustifiable outrage on civilization, is such 
a hideous cataclysm that responsibility for its origin 
must be dodged at any cost of misrepresentation, sup- 
pression of facts or deliberate falsehood. 

A few days before the most inopportune and 
condemnatory Christmas the Christian world had 
been ever called upon to celebrate M. Viviani, the 
French Premier, addressed the Chamber of Deputies 
in part as follows: "The Allies are determined to 



212 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

continue this war until outraged right has been 
avenged, the stolen provinces regained, heroic Bel- 
gium restored, Prussian militarism crushed and all 
Europe regenerated and reconstructed according to 
every ideal of justice." M. Deschanel, President of 
the Chamber, upon the same occasion, rose to a 
somewhat loftier height than that attained bj the 
Premier. He said: "France is defending her re- 
spect for treaties, for the independence of Europe 
and for human liberty. The question now before us 
is whether or not centuries of effort in that direction 
must end in slavery, if matter is to dominate mind 
and if the world is to become the bloodstained prey of 
violence." Revenge was the keynote struck by M. 
Viviani, Liberty the dominant idea chosen by M. 
Deschanel. The forgiveness of enemies, a Christian 
procedure most appropriate to the Christmas season, 
was not even remotely suggested as a desirable pro- 
ceeding by either speaker, pleading, as they were 
at the moment, the cause of warring France before 
the bar of the world's neutrals. In fact a statesman 
who to-day advocated the application of Christianity 
as a poultice to cure the open wounds of humanity 
would be met with suspicion, if not derision, by those 
who at present hold the destinies of the race in their 
control. 

Nevertheless, it remains true that both the warring 
and the neutral nations of the earth are practically 



CHKISTIANITY AT THE BAR 213 

at one at this crisis in their denunciation of, and 
detestation for, War as an institution. The accusa- 
tion that the able and learned Eliot brings against 
Christianity that it has not made international peace 
practicable may be unanswerable, but is it not pos- 
sible that the teachings of Christ may be largely 
responsible for the fact that each one of the Euro- 
pean belligerents has officially and publicly expressed 
an abhorrence for the necessity that seemingly made 
bloodshed inevitable? Each warring nation appeals 
for vindication to this generation and to posterity. 
It seems to be recognized to-day by the powers that 
be that the race at large possesses a moral sense that 
cannot be ignored, ^o one can doubt the courage 
of the Germans. It has been proved repeatedly upon 
many a bloody field. But there is one fear that is 
exhibited by the Kaiser's subjects, a fear that does 
them credit, and that is that now, and to-morrow, 
and for all time they may be held responsible for 
making the greatest of all recorded crimes possible. 
Against the possibility that this damning judgment 
may fall upon them they have made use of every re- 
source at their command to establish their innocence 
before the world. Surely this sensitiveness upon the 
part of Germany, and of every nation taking part in 
the war of wars, to the opinion of mankind regarding 
the moral issues involved in the great conflict orig- 
inates rather in Galilee than in Corsica. 



214 THE GAME OF EMPIKES 

Because the greatest of all human wrongs was per- 
petrated on earth nineteen hundred and fourteen 
years after the birth of Christ it is claimed that 
Christianity has failed in its mission to mankind. 
The facts in this most important of all cases ever 
brought before the bar of civilization prove conclu- 
sively that the indictment, as worded by ex-President 
Eliot and others, is too sweeping in its range. Chris- 
tianity, it is evident, has failed to exercise a guiding 
influence upon Emperors, Kings, Statesmen, Diplo- 
matists and gun manufacturers, but do not all peoples 
on the planet long to-day, as they have never longed 
before, for peace on earth — ^good will to men? As 
Dr. Eliot points out, the men in high places who de- 
creed the war of wars — and they were amazingly 
few in number — recognized the fact that Man is not 
merely a fighting animal but a religious being, who 
gropes in the dark blindly for a supernatural sanc- 
tion when some great crisis in his life as an indi- 
vidual or in the mass demands of him heroic action. 
Autocracy — and it is from autocracy that wars spring 
— has always recognized, and used to its own ad- 
vantage, that mysterious human tendency to wor- 
ship a power that is not of earth to which even the 
atheistical I^apoleon was wont to appeal when he 
wished to refill his decimated ranks. Galilee spurns 
and rejects Corsica but Corsica, with diabolical cun- 
ning, makes use of Galilee. 



CHEISTIANITY AT THE BAR 215 

That the ethics of the ITazarene have failed, after 
nineteen hundred years of existence, to put an end 
to the greatest of all human evils is a lamentable 
fact that proves not the inherent weakness of the 
ethics in question but the fact that so long as man- 
kind permits Caesar to maintain his autocratic rule 
the doctrines of Christ, predicating, as they do, the 
brotherhood of man, can not prevail on earth. The 
revelations recently made to the public of the secrets 
of the European diplomacy that preceded the war 
of wars demonstrate conclusively the significant 
proposition that the conflict now raging in the world 
is the outcome of surviving forms of despotism that 
deny to the peoples over which they tyrannize the 
right to decide the issue, when it grows acute, of 
war or peace. And what is true in this connection 
to-day has been true for the nineteen hundred years 
that have succeeded the coming to earth of the Prince 
of Peace. Autocracy, when it has not nullified the 
doctrines of Christianity, has made use of them 
adroitly for the furtherance of its own ends. In 
other words, the teachings of the Christ have not as 
yet had an opportunity, owing to the pernicious per- 
sistence in the world of forms of government an- 
tagonistic to their spirit, of exercising sufficient 
power to render war, the most unchristian of all hu- 
man activities, obsolete. 

But the end is not yet. The conflict between Cor- 



216 THE GAME OF EMPIKES 

sica and Galilee has not been fought to a finish. 
Christ preached Democracy and Democracy is funda- 
mentally antagonistic to War. Before it can be as- 
serted without danger of contradiction that the ethics 
of Jesus of Nazareth have failed permanently to re- 
generate a blood-stained world those ethics must have, 
as they are sure to have, a chance to employ demo- 
cratic institutions as a medium through which to 
influence the destinies of mankind. Every recent 
war on earth has been followed by a weakening of 
the hold of autocracy upon the scepters it has wielded 
too long and a marked increase in the power and 
spread of democracy. There is nothing mysterious 
about this significant and encouraging fact. An 
autocrat who in these days assembles a vast army 
beneath his banner is playing with an explosive. The 
intercourse with each other of the rank and file of 
embattled troops, each individual of whom has put 
into practice perforce the great renunciation, the 
self-sacrifice that patriotism demands, gives a prac- 
tical demonstration of that brotherhood of man by 
means of which universal democracy shall erect 
eventually its shining palace of peace. And over the 
portals of that palace will be inscribed not the words 
of the Corsican, "What are a million lives to me?" 
but those of the Galilean: "Peace on earth — good 
will to men!" 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE AEMOE OF EIGHTEOUSNESS 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE AEMOK OF EIGHTEOUSNESS 

The bloodiest, most tragic year in tlie history of 
the race approached its end with few gleams of 
light to relieve the darkness that had enveloped the 
planet for five black months. Men wished each 
other a "Happy New Year" with an earnestness 
hitherto unknovsm but with a note of apprehension 
in their voices. Not only was the end of the war 
of wars not yet in sight but it promised to involve 
presently several nations, notably Italy, hitherto 
maintaining with great difficulty their neutrality. 
The magnitude of the conflict gave to it several char- 
acteristics that had been heretofore absent from in- 
ternational wars. It seemed as if a large part of 
mankind had been suddenly afflicted with a mania 
for human slaughter, as if the God Mars, importu- 
nate and unsatiated, had cursed the world with an 
epidemic of madness to the end that he might gloat 
over the most colossal clash of armies the earth 
had ever known. 

The toll taken of human life by the end of the 
219 



220 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

Year of Death, 1914, was appalling. The theory 
that modern warfare would prove less destructive 
than the conflicts from which it has evolved had 
been proved to be untenable. The hope that an 
approximation to "civilized" warfare might be 
gained through new and more effective weapons had 
come to naught. Death, as heretofore, presided 
over the game of war and demanded even a larger 
percentage of the pawns involved than he had ex- 
acted in former times. Modern surgery had made 
great progress in dealing with the latest styles in 
wounds but, despite its ingenuity, the fatalities on 
the battlefields of 1914: reached a higher percentage 
than had ever been attained in the fine art of man's 
destruction of man. 

A semi-official statement published in the last week 
of December, 1914, regarding the casualties sus- 
tained by the Germans said : "The Prussian losses 
up to date, including those not published, may be 
set down as about 250,000 dead, 400,000 missing 
and 850,000 wounded, bringing the total up to about 
one and a half million. With the Wurttemberg, 
Bavarian and navy losses, the German losses alto- 
gether must be about 2,000,000. According to in- 
formation from Vienna the Austro-Hungarian casu- 
alties are estimated at about one and a half million 
officers and men killed, wounded and missing." 

From figures compiled by M. Yves Guyot, the 



AEMOR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 221 

noted French economist, the number of men with- 
drawn from employment in Germany to engage in 
war is conservatively 4,350,000 and from Austria- 
Hungary 3,500,000. If this grand total of Y,850,- 
000 men is approximately correct and the losses 
have been 3,500,000, the price paid by these two 
nations in killed, wounded and missing has been 
over 44 per cent, of the forces engaged — a propor- 
tional loss much greater than was inflicted upon the 
combatants in the American Civil War or the 
Franco-Prussian War. 

It was beyond the power of the human imagina- 
tion to gi'asp the grim significance of these astound- 
ing figures. When to them were added the losses 
sustained in the war of wars by the other nations 
involved therein, the mind of man found itself as 
powerless to comprehend the full scope of the great 
cataclysm of 1914 as to realize the meaning of 
eternity or infinity. And the possibilities of the 
immediate future were startling. Even the nations 
not actually engaged in warfare had become super- 
sensitive and quarrelsome by the end of the Great 
Red Year. Uncle Sam's holiday greetings to John 
Bull had taken the form of a sharp note advising 
our English cousins to exercise more care in their 
treatment of American merchant vessels. Italy was 
shaking her mailed fist at Turkey and continuing 
her dispute with Austria. If, as many able men 



222 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

assert, War is an institution of spiritual value to 
the race, it appeared as if many hitherto peaceful 
nations, both great and small, seemed determined 
to take advantage of the contentious nature of the 
times and gain for themselves such portion of this 
spiritual uplift as might come within their grasp. 
In a sense, many of the concepts cherished by the 
age of chivalry were revived and preached in a new 
form. As the youthful knight of old watched and 
prayed beside his arms during the dark hours pre- 
ceding his admittance as a full-fledged warrior to 
the coming fray, so the neutral nations of the earth 
met the advent of the year 1915 with searching 
eyes fixed upon their weapons. There was in the 
world a widespread fear that the year that had 
brought the greatest of all woes to mankind might 
be followed conceivably by a twelvemonth that 
should widen rather than narrow the scope of the 
war of wars. 

There was one feature of the tragic situation in 
which the world found itself as the New Year came 
in that made a strong impression upon many 
thoughtful Americans. That war is of itself wholly 
and uncompromisingly evil had become of recent 
years practically a national belief in this country. 
But, behold it to-day, waged on a gigantic scale by 
machinery, and there is about it something soul- 
stirring, uplifting, psychologically purifying that 



ARMOR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 223 

gives it a vindication against which we protest but 
whose influence is changing the thoughts of millions 
of peace-loving men and women startled at the pos- 
sibility that their denunciations of war as an un- 
justifiable return of man to savagery may have 
been too sweeping. To die in battle for a cause in 
which one believes is to make, in a minor way, the 
same kind of sacrifice that the Christ made upon the 
Cross. 

As a writer in the Atlantic Monthly for January, 
1915, signing himself "E. S.," puts it: "The truth 
is that modern life and modern thought have com- 
passed an unnatural evolution. We have sought to 
invert ancient ideals, and the minds of men revolt. 
Look freshly at the contrast. Peace calls men to 
comfort and refreshment, to freedom from danger, 
and rest from fear. War points the way to toil and 
suffering, to strange new gropings in the mysterious 
paths of pain, to struggle and victory and death. 
The more toilsome the way, the more difficult the 
goal, the stronger the lure must be to ardent spirits. 
It is the desperate alternative which grips mind and 
heart and spirit." 

"Let me remind you," wrote the late J. A. Cramb, 
of Queen's College, London, "that in human life as 
a whole there are always elements and forces, there 
are always motives and ideals, which defy the analy- 
sis of reason — mysterious and dark forces. Man 



224 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

shall not live bj bread alone! And in war this 
element constantly tends to assert itself. It assumes 
forms that sometimes are dazzling in their beauty; 
sometimes are wrapt in a kind of transcendental 
wonder; sometimes, in appearance at least, are sim- 
ply utilitarian, or chimerical, or fantastic. But all 
alike have this quality of defying reason, of eluding 
the grasp of the mind when exercised in formal 
judgment merely. It is easy, for example, to demon- 
strate that the glory of battle is an illusion, but by 
the same argument you can demonstrate that all 
glory and life itself is an illusion and a mockery. 
Nevertheless men still live and go on pursuing that 
illusion and that mockery." 

As we Americans, gazing with horrified eyes 
across the seas at embattled millions of our fellow- 
men, murmured the season's greetings to each other, 
was it strange that in our souls we were conscious 
of, puzzled by, and apprehensive of that mysterious 
fascination that War has possessed for Man through- 
out all the ages, never before apparently more 
powerful than to-day ? Even if history did not warn 
us as a nation against turning our swords into prun- 
ing hooks, is there not deep within us something 
that responds to the call of the heroic, something 
that leads us to gaze into the future with the con- 
viction that we Americans, who have the blood of 
fighting generations in our veins, must be tested 



ARMOR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 225 

eventually by the fires that call for the great renun- 
ciation and in their horror and their splendor, de- 
stroying selfishness and pettiness and the common- 
place, glorify a people worthy to undergo the ordeal ? 
Belgium as a nation of shopkeepers was negligible; 
Belgium as a nation of heroes shall be an inspira- 
tion to all generations to come. 

A clear and ringing note in connection with this 
subject has been struck recently by an American 
woman, Agnes Repplier, a note, it is to be feared, 
that will fall upon many ears in Washington woe- 
fully deaf to the harsh sounds of warning that 
come to us from many unexpected sources. "For 
years we have chosen to believe," says Miss Rep- 
plier, who would never turn her hatpin into a hair- 
pin, "that arbitration would secure for the world 
a maximum of comfort at a minimum of cost, and 
that the religion of humanity would achieve what 
the religion of Christ has never achieved, — the 
brotherhood of man. From this dream we have 
been rudely awakened; but, being awake, let us 
clearly realize that simple and great quality which 
makes every man the defender of his home, the 
guardian of his rights, the avenger of his shame- 
ful wrongs." There are men in the United States, 
some of them high in the councils of the nation, who 
should read these manly words of a brilliant woman 
with the blush of shame mantling their cheeks. 



226 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

It might be possible for a careless reader to 
mistake the above in its entirety as a plea in behalf 
of War, as the attitude of an American "Jingo" 
inspired, at a safe distance from battlefields, by the 
glory of martial achievements and indifferent to the 
horrors that attend the movements and clash of 
armies. In such a case, a grave injustice would be 
perpetrated. An American writer who should to- 
day endeavor to arouse in this country a martial 
spirit based simply upon admiration of War as an 
institution would be, so far as his influence went, 
a traitor to the highest interests of humanity. The 
year 1915 found at its coming but one satisfactory 
feature in the existing situation on earth, namely, 
that the United States was at peace with all nations 
and was endeavoring earnestly to remain so. Be- 
tween peace and war, even though there be elements 
in the latter that are not wholly evil, there is no 
question as to which of the two is the more advan- 
tageous to any nation. But war has not been elimi- 
nated from human affairs, nor is there the slightest 
prospect that the present gigantic conflict will put 
an end to it forever. It is the bounden duty of 
every patriotic American to realize this and to ex- 
tract what comfort he can from the fact that the sac- 
rifices that an embattled people are forced to make 
exert an uplifting effect that does something to atone 
for the horrors and misery inflicted by war. And it 



ARMOR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 227 

must be borne in mind always that there is a radical 
difference between a righteous war and an unright- 
eous war, as there is between peace with honor and 
peace with shame. There is a price for peace that 
no nation sensitive regarding its honor is ever willing 
to pay. 

Bishop Ingram, of London, holding as he does 
high rank in the army of Him who came to bring 
not peace but a sword, gave voice in his New Year's 
sermon to his admiration for "the new spirit" that 
has come of late to the English people. They are 
fighting, or suffering, nobly in a worthy cause and 
there has come to them a spiritual awakening that 
rewards only that nation, or individual, to which, or 
whom, the purifying influences of self-sacrifice are 
made known through stress and strife and the ab- 
sorption of individual aims by a lofty ideal. From 
the standpoint of the parents, widows or orphans 
bereaved by a war, of which English valor has been 
one of the most striking features, the price paid for 
the spiritual uplift that has been vouchsafed to a 
nation sorely in need thereof may seem at first too 
great. 

But there will come a time when the descendants 
of the Britishers who fell in defending Belgium 
from unrighteous aggression, who died for the sanc- 
tity of their nation's plighted word, will be better 



228 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

men because of the proud memories they cherish of 
their forbears of this generation. 

The youth of America retain to-day a vivid recol- 
lection of a war fought with a European power by 
the United States to destroy the intolerable tyranny 
of an obsolete despotism exercised upon an unhappy 
people just beyond our coast-line. Has not that in- 
spiring memory much to do with the fact that this 
nation as a whole has been dominated from the out- 
set of the war of wars by earnest sympathy for Eng- 
land and the cause for which she fights ? Our very 
worthy pacificists cannot alter the fact that as a peo- 
ple we remember, and shall alwaj^s remember, the 
Maine. We have worn the armor of righteousness, 
and he is but a shortsighted and misg-uided Ameri- 
can who asserts that we may never be forced to don 
that armor again. 



CHAPTER XIV 



THE IMMOEALITY OF WEAKNESS 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE IMMORALITY OF WEAKNESS 

To add to the gloom that had prevailed in the 
United States at what should have been the joyous 
'New Year season, hostilities had broken out early in 
January at Washington, D. C. The fever of bel- 
ligerency that had long been epidemic among the 
wielders of power in Europe had attacked the lead- 
ing personages at our nation's capital and open war 
had been declared between the President and the 
Senate. Compared with Petrograd, London, Paris, 
Berlin and Vienna, Washington had been, since the 
outbreak of hostilities across the sea, a governmental 
center in which peace, and a large amount of real 
joyousness, had prevailed. There were beneath the 
dome of our Capitol no wounded soldiers coming 
from the front, mourning garb was not to be seen 
on all sides, the city was well lighted at night and 
the holiday dances had been gay and well attended. 
But a war cloud, small as a woman's hand — the 
hand of Mrs. Marjorie Bloom, of Devil's Lake, N. D. 
— had appeared upon our national horizon and the 

231 



232 THE GAME OF EMPIKES 

White House telescope constantly scanned the heav- 
ens for hostile aeroplanes that might be dispatched 
carrying bombs from the Senate Chamber. 

The seriousness of the situation could not be ex- 
aggerated. With millions of men in Europe and 
other parts of the world shooting each other down 
because of misunderstandings regarding their re- 
spective prerogatives on earth, it was the most ap- 
propriate possible time for the Executive and Sen- 
ate of the United States to display firmness and 
courage in regard to their conflicting rights. The 
President had taken the ground that Mrs. Bloom 
was eminently fitted to manipulate such mail as 
might happen to reach the post-office at Devil's Lake, 
I^. D. The Senate had rejected unanimously the 
President's nomination, thus throwing down a gaunt- 
let that appeared to put an end to all possibilities of 
reconciliation between the White House and the 
Upper Chamber. An administration that seemed 
destined to undertake the most colossal task of arbi- 
tration that had ever been thrust upon a neutral 
power had found it impossible to make a postmis- 
tress of Mrs. Marjorie Bloom. Parturiunt monies, 
nascetur ridiculus mus. 

What may be known to posterity as the war of 
Devil's Lake was the more to be regretted as many of 
the people of the LTnited States had become con- 
vinced gradually that it was high time for our gov- 



THE IMMOKALITY OF WEAKNESS 233 

ernment to look existing world facts squarely in the 
face and prepare for possibilities in the future that 
might easily test our defensive resources to their 
uttermost. In the first week of January, 1915, a 
startling detailed presentment of our appalling 
weakness as a fighting power was made to the 
American public, through the columns of a Xew 
York newspaper, by Captain Matthew E. Hanna, 
U. S. A., retired. A gTaduate of West Point, he 
had seen service in the Santiago campaign, and his 
book on tactics has been recognized as a standard 
authority by our War Department. If our first line 
of defense, namely, our naval power, proved itself 
too weak to cripple an invading fleet of transports 
protected by battleships sent against our eastern 
coast by a European foe. Captain Hanna shows by 
incontrovertible facts and figures that our military 
arm is far from strong enough to protect us from 
an army that might be landed at any unprotected 
strip of coast between Maine and Florida. The 
voice of the expert is heard in the land, and there 
are among our people many who heed it. But what 
effect have the words of Captain Hanna had upon 
the calm, unimpressionable, fearless mind of, let us 
say. Representative Lumpkin, of the Freshwater, 
Ind., district ? Is the latter at all shocked by the 
demonstrated fact, made clear by Captain Hanna, 
that there is not in this country to-day sufficient am- 



234 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

munition to enable our available forces to continue 
a battle lasting longer than, at the most, forty-eight 
hours? ]S[o. "What of it?" queries the eloquent 
Lumpkin in a recent speech to his admiring con- 
stituents. "This talk about a possible invasion of 
this country is all poppycock. To store ammunition 
in large quantities with the idea that some time in 
the remote future some war-mad European power 
might attempt to land troops on the Jersey Coast is 
to spend the people's money recklessly. We need 
dams, irrigation, post-offices, and, perhaps, now and 
then, a new battleship. My motto, my friends, is, 
and shall continue to be: ^Millions for tribute but 
not one cent for defense !' " 

There are many Lumpkinses in the United States, 
both in and out of office. They are suffering from 
a form of sleeping sickness known in its manifesta- 
tions in official circles as "watchful waiting." 
Watchful waiting is a kind of mental inertia that, 
like charity, covers a multitude of sins. It mas- 
querades before the world as a praiseworthy method 
of procedure, in which caution, conservatism and 
carefulness supply the elements that should recom- 
mend it to a nation that prides itself upon its regard 
for common sense. Watchfulness has always been 
recognized as a virtue worthy of cultivation by either 
a people or an individual. That we Americans 
should always keep an eye upon the Game of Em- 



THE IMMORALITY OF WEAKNESS 235 

pires as it is played in the twentieth century upon 
a blood-stained earth is the admonition that is im- 
plied in the historic phrase quoted above. We are, 
furthermore, to remain perfectly cool and calm — 
and wait. For what, can it not be asked, are we to 
wait? 

Is it suggested that, before we take the necessary 
steps to put our country in a state of reasonable de- 
fense, we are to delay all practical endeavors toward 
strengthening our position until an immediate need 
for such activity shall come to us? Unfortunately 
this interpretation of the advice that has been given 
to the country by a spineless type of statesmen has 
had its influence upon a large number of Americans 
who are so busy with their personal affairs that they 
dislike to have their attention called forcibly to the 
foreign relations of our government. This type of 
our fellow-citizens is fond of seeking his pillow at 
night to fall off to slumber with a picture in his 
mind of a watchful administration at Washington 
engaged at all hours in scanning the horizons of the 
world to see to it that no peril to us from a foreign 
source can arise in a way that should be either sud- 
den or alarming or both. In other words, watclv 
ful waiting is guaranteed to work while the people 
sleep. 

One of the greatest of the many difficulties that 
confront writers like Roosevelt, Hanna and others 



236 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

in their efforts to arouse the people of the United 
States to a realization of the unpleasant possibilities 
that threaten us in the future lies in the fact that 
the average man possesses little if any imagination. 
He thinks in terms of his own personal experience, 
not in those of states or nations or races. Even 
though he may read history, past and present, his 
mental limitations are such that he cannot grasp the 
full significance of the facts by which he has been 
confronted. Accuse him of a lack of imagination 
and that very lack disables him from comprehending 
the gravity of the charge that you bring against him. 
ISTo living man has yet been discovered who would 
admit that his imagination is defective or that he is 
lacking in a sense of humor. Men and women pos- 
sessing both imagination and humor — and these 
emanate from brain-cells closely connected — are 
forced to talk to their fellow-men at times in a lan- 
guage that the latter have never understood. 

Say to the average American that, when the time 
of an ocean voyage from Europe to America was 
reduced, by the geniuses who make modern machin- 
ery, to five days, the situation of this country from 
a military standpoint was radically changed ; he may 
admit your proposition but his smug satisfaction in 
the settled conviction that, under any circumstances, 
this country could "lick the world" will not be 
shaken. Tell him that an army of a hundred thou- 



THE IMMOEALITY OF WEAKNESS 237 

sand well-trained European soldiers landed upon our 
Eastern shores could put our country at their mercy 
and he will advise you to take a nerve-tonic or to 
consult a specialist in general prostration. If you 
go too far with him, become too earnest in your con- 
tention that our lack of preparedness for war is a 
real peril, he may even accuse you of being inter- 
ested financially in the manufacture of arms and a 
patriot only for the interests of your own pocket. 

The vast majority of Americans have not yet 
grasped the full meaning of the change of status of 
the United States among the nations of the world 
brought about by the outcome of our war with Spain. 
They are fond of saying that to mind one's own 
business is the wisest course for either a people or 
an individual to pursue. That Belgium was follow- 
ing this praiseworthy method of procedure early last 
summer is a fact that apparently has no significance 
for them. Belgium was not permitted to mind her 
own business. Through a combination of events the 
United States, having become a so-called "world 
power," is no longer in a position to confine her ac- 
tivities within the limitations that were possible a 
few years ago. For a "world power" is of necessity 
one of a very few nations upon whose procedure the 
destinies of the race depends. The future of the 
world is in the hands of several great peoples now 
at war and, outside of them, of the United States 



238 THE GAME OF EMPIKES 

only. Fate has ordained that the time has long gone 
by when this country could confine her energies 
wholly to her own concerns. In fact, in our recent 
effort, at a great international crisis, to mind our 
own business we stultified ourselves for all time by 
not fulfilling, or even making a pretense to fulfill, 
our obligations to invaded Belgium. Watchful wait- 
ing, forsooth ! We silently watched the perpetration 
of a great crime and supinely waited until the pro- 
test that it was our bounden duty to make was ren- 
dered impossible through the passage of time. 

Technically and morally, as the leading authori- 
ties on the subject, including one ex-President of 
the United States, have shown, the United States 
failed in its sworn duty to Belgium. The greatest 
opportunity that has ever come to this nation to 
prove that as a world power it is not only altruistic 
but also strong and courageous enough to make its 
altruism effectual will be to us throughout the ages 
not a glory but a reproach. It has taken a long 
while for the American who is busily engaged in 
minding his own business, and who reluctantly ad- 
mits that new obligations have come to this coimtry, 
to realize that any responsibility for the precipita- 
tion of the war of wars rests upon the shoulders of 
the United States. But he has begun to see light 
on this matter and if anything is certain in this 
world it is the fact that the present administration 



THE IMMORALITY OF WEAKNESS 239 

at Washington will be eventually held to account by 
the people of this country for not doing the right 
thing at the right time regarding Germany's inva- 
sion, in the summer of 1914, of a neutral state. 

It may be asked, in the above connection, why, if, 
as Captain Hanna has shown, we are weak as a 
fighting power, we should have taken the dangerous 
step of protesting to Germany against her treatment 
of Belgium. The query is pertinent as bringing 
clearly into the limelight a fact that should make a 
powerful impression upon a people that, as our past 
has shown, is just, honorable and courageous at the 
core. Weakness in a nation or an individual renders 
the fulfillment of moral obligations impossible. For 
a government to give guarantees that it has not the 
power to make good when they are put to the test is 
a crime of the same kind that a man commits who 
promises to accomplish a given purpose that is be- 
yond the means at his disposal. The people of the 
United States have been taught many lessons by the 
war of wars. If one of these lessons brings to our 
cheeks the blush of shame, it is for us to insist upon 
it, through our representatives at Washington, that 
we so strengthen ourselves as a fighting power that 
henceforth we may not prove false to our plighted 
word as a nation merely because we are too weak to 
risk the perils that might threaten us if we remained 
true to our obligations. "At present the prime duty 



240 TII£ GAME OF EMPIRES 

of the American people," says ex-President Roose- 
velt, "is to abandon the inane and mischievous prin- 
ciple of watchful waiting — that is, of slothful and 
timid refusal either to face facts or to perform duty. 
Let us act justly toward others ; and let us also be 
prepared with stout heart and strong hand to defend 
our rights against injustice from others." 

It comes to this, that the United States has two 
imperative reasons for strengthening our naval and 
military forces, one of them materialistic, the other 
moral. We should be in a position at all times to 
repel aggression, and never too weak to fulfill to the 
letter our obligations as an honorable people. That 
for the above reasons there is present need for action 
upon the part of our government has been reluc- 
tantly and, in a way, amusingly admitted by several 
of the leading pacificists of our country. The l^ew 
York Peace Society, of which Mr. Andrew Carnegie 
is President, in January, 1915, sent a letter to the 
President of the United States that resembled a mes- 
sage from men who deplore the existence of rain 
but admit the necessity for umbrellas if the clouds 
become sufiiciently threatening. "We are in agree- 
ment," wrote the pacificists to Mr. Wilson, "with 
your interpretation of the principles which underlie 
our national policy of defense, viz.: that in the fu- 
ture, as in the past, we shall maintain a powerful 
navy as our natural means of defense, but never for 



THE IMMORALITY OF WEAKNESS 241 

aggression; that our systems of state and national 
militia shall be extended in an orderly manner and be 
maintained on such a basis as to constitute an ade- 
quate land defense, but that while we maintain our 
present principles and ideals we shall not keep a 
large standing army or move in the direction of 
compulsory military service ; that the army and navy 
shall be kept in a high state of efficiency, and that 
we shall always make our moral insurance against 
war very definite, certain and adequate." 

It is apparent that imagination and a sense of 
humor, closely related, as was said above, are not in 
evidence in this remarkable communication from 
pacificists to the President. One of the interesting 
features of this letter lies in the fact that it emanates 
from New York, a city that suffered recently from an 
unchecked wave of crime and was terrorized by gun- 
men. Supposing that a body of highly intelligent and 
prominent citizens of New York should write to the 
Mayor to assure him that they were now, as in the 
past, in favor of the maintenance of a powerful 
police force — but never for aggression. Suppose 
that they should put forward the proposition that 
the best way to keep gunmen in order is for reputable 
citizens to furnish them at all times with a worthy 
example. Supposing that they should go to the 
length of insisting that a policeman should always 
parley with a criminal malefactor before using force 



242 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

against him — would the Mayor and the public be 
favorably impressed with their point of view ? 

It is evident that the events of the year 1914 
have not succeeded in forcing American pacificists 
to adopt a position that is either consistent, logical or 
practical. Their recent letter to President Wilson 
establishes the fact that they have been forced to 
admit that war, far from being obsolete, is a very 
active institution at the present time. They appear 
now to realize, as they did not realize before the 
recent outbreak of hostilities in Europe, that little 
progress has been made in eliminating from the 
world the worst of its many evils. With the revela- 
tion of the continued depravity of pugnacious Man 
that has been made to them by recent bloody events, 
they have become aware of the unpleasant truth that 
the woe and ruin that have befallen Europe might 
conceivably afflict these United States. But they 
must approach the matter gingerly, compromising 
as they go, keeping one hand on the white dove of 
peace and the other — naughty hand! — upon a gun. 

The coming of the millennium is much to be de- 
sired for countless reasons, not the least important 
among them being that its advent might prevent 
many really admirable men from periodically mak- 
ing themselves publicly ridiculous. 



CHAPTER XV 



VALOR VERSUS AVOIDANCE 



CHAPTER XV 

VALOR VERSUS AVOIDANCE 

"World dominion or downfall!" By January of 
1915 it had become apparent that Germany was 
not to obtain the prize for which her militarists had 
plunged a deluded people into a war begun in mad- 
ness and carried on against overwhelming odds. 
Whether the alternative to universal power, namely, 
complete overthrow, was to be Germany's punish- 
ment for inane, even insane, temerity was a ques- 
tion that the future only could answer, but the Ger- 
manization of the world had become a discredited 
dream the realization of which had been vainly at- 
tempted at the cost of innumerable lives. The cour- 
age, efficiency and enthusiasm of the German armies 
had proved unavailing to bring to success a mili- 
tary adventure that will go down to posterity as the 
most amazing and foolhardy exhibition of martial 
dare-deviltry that history has recorded. An alle- 
gorical picture representing von Kluck knocking at 
the gates of Paris would be a design immortalizing 
a gigantic military blunder and the transposition of 

245 



246 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

a vision of impossible glory into the grim reality of 
a lost cause. The Battle of the Marne put an end 
forever not only to the effort of Germany to attain 
world domination but to her attempt to exalt Corsica 
at the expense of Galilee. 

"While preparing to found a world-empire," says 
the late Professor Cramb, "Germany is also prepar- 
ing to create a world-religion. * * * The prevalent 
bent of mind at the universities, in the army among 
the more cultured, is toward what may be described 
as the Religion of Valor, reinterpreted by ISTapoleon 
and by Kietzsche — the glory of action, heroism, the 
doing of great things. It is in metaphysics Zara- 
thustra's ^Amor Fati.' It is in politics and ethics 
!N^apoleonism. These same young men, who, in this 
very month, thrill with the scenes of 1813, see in 
IN^apoleon the oppressor, biit they see in ISTapoleon' s 
creed the springs of his action, a message of fire: 
Live dangerously!" 

Germany's endeavor to foist the Religion of Valor 
upon an unwilling world sprang, as is apparent, 
from an inclination that was not inconsistent with 
her success in winning the active assistance of Tur- 
key in the waging of the war of wars. A Germany 
devoted to Galilee could not have made use of the 
Turk. A Germany inspired by Corsica was under 
no obligation to inspect the religious creed of an ally. 
The only question at issue was whether Turkey had 



VALOR VERSUS AVOIDANCE 247 

recovered sufficiently from recent military disasters 
to wage effective warfare. Unfortunately for Ger- 
many, Turkey, as had Austria, proved to be a weak 
sister rather than a stalwart brother. The rout of 
three Turkish army corps in the Caucasus by the 
Russians at the beginning of the new year was a 
more serious blow to Germany than the American 
public generally realized. The flower of the Turkish 
army had been destroyed in the futile effort to in- 
vade Russian provinces in Asia Minor and thus 
weaken Russian pressure upon Germany and Aus- 
tria. The full significance of this crushing blow to 
Germany's latest ally was summed up in the follow- 
ing words by Mr. Frank H. Simonds, who has taken 
a high place during the war of wars as an authority 
on the military features of the great struggle : "The 
Turkish defeat in the Caucasus has imperiled the 
whole German supremacy on the Golden Horn, it 
has abolished all possible temptation for the Balkan 
States to join the Kaiser, it has opened the way to 
Bulgaria, Roumania and Greece to win easy laurels 
and new provinces. In addition it has practically 
assured British position in Egypt, in the near East 
generally. The Holy War has gone glimmering." 

Pan-Germanism and Pan-Islamism had been cast 
into that astounding rubbish heap into which all 
schemes for universal domination are eventually 
thrown. Italy and the Balkan States, long held in 



248 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

leash, prepared to take part in the great fray, to the 
end that when the spoils of the war of wars were 
divided they might present claims to a share therein. 
Toothing succeeds like success. The increasing 
probability that the Triple Entente was to dictate 
presently the immediate future of Europe influenced 
powers still technically neutral to fall into line with 
the coming victors. Europe was being butchered to 
make presently the most amazing holiday the world 
had known. Happy that people in the coming time 
of triumph or atonement whose portion should be 
bread and circuses rather than chains and despoil- 
ment. In the quaint phraseology of American poli- 
tics, it was high time for Italy, Roumania, Greece 
and other ambitious states to get aboard the band 
wagon. 

Such was the situation in Europe when the Presi- 
dent of the United States, in a speech at Indianapo- 
lis, Ind., counseled the people of this country to 
avoid taking too much interest in the epoch-making 
events that were rapidly changing the map of the 
world. "I for one," said Mr. Wilson, "would prefer 
that our thoughts should not too often cross the ocean 
but should center themselves upon the policies and 
duties of the United States." Behold the contrast 
presented at the moment by the Old World and the 
InTow. In the former the Religion of Valor stood 
forth as a false doctrine that was sending millions 



VALOK VERSUS AVOIDANCE 249 

of men to death : in the latter the Religion of Avoid- 
ance was being preached to the end that the blind 
might continue to be leaders of the blind. 

Can it be possible that between such seemingly an- 
tagonistic cults as the Religion of Valor and the Re- 
ligion of Avoidance there can be anything in com- 
mon, that in the last analysis they should be four.d 
to rest upon the same foundation-stone? The for- 
mer, through whose influence the continent of Eu- 
rope has been deluged with blood, bids its devotees 
to "live dangerously" and, if need be, to die 
slaughtered. The Religion of Avoidance, on the 
other hand, commands its adherents to live safely 
and to die, if possible, of extreme old age. Between 
the teachings of the German Kaiser and the Ameri- 
can President there seems to be, at first glance, a 
great gulf fixed. But placing them beneath the mi- 
croscope of close scrutiny and eliminating the sharply 
contrasted modes of procedure that they respectively 
advocate, we find that their underpinning is iden- 
tically the same, that they are both based upon the 
unworthy passion of human selfishness. 

There is another point of resemblance between 
the Religion of Valor and the Religion of Avoidance. 
It is only a provincial type of mentality that could 
preach either of these cults to an enlightened people 
in the twentieth century. The Religion of Valor is 
based upon a narrow, reactionary, uncosmopolitan 



250 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

attitude of mind toward the legitimate mission of a 
civilized nation in the world of to-daj. It is 
founded upon the same kind of colossal and ludicrous 
egotism that is exhibited bj countless country vil- 
lages each one of which loudly proclaims itself to an 
unappreciative public as the center of the universe. 
The idea underlying the phrase ^'Deutschland liber 
Alles" is a manifestation of provincial megalomania 
that would be laughable if it had not been responsi- 
ble for the greatest of all world tragedies. 

The Religion of Avoidance, solemnly urged upon 
the people of the United States as the only true faith, 
is, like the Religion of Valor, a product of provin- 
cialism, of a point of view that wholly ignores the 
just demands of perspective. It insists upon it that 
no man is his brother's keeper, that no nation can be 
reasonably concerned in the affairs of its neighbors. 
"I want to say a word about Mexico," remarked the 
President, at Indianapolis, on January 9, 1915. 
' 'Eighty per cent, of the people of Mexico never had 
a 'look in' in determining who should be their gover- 
nors or what their government should be. It is none 
of my business and it is none of your business how 
long they take in determining it. It is none of my 
business and it is none of your business how they 
go about the business. The country is theirs. The 
liberty, if they can get it, and God speed them in 
getting it, is theirs. And so far as my influence goes 



VALOR VERSUS AVOIDANCE 251 

while I am President nobody shall interfere with 
them." 

It will be seen from the above uncompromising 
words that the Religion of Valor and the Religion 
of Avoidance, while they resemble each other in 
their provincial selfishness, display marked differ- 
ences in their practical application to the affairs of 
nations. The attitude of the Kaiser toward a neigh- 
boring state is radically different from that of the 
President. The Religion of Valor permits a people 
to hack their way through neutral territory if the 
advisability of so doing appears to be clear. The 
Religion of Avoidance impels its High Priest to send 
not an army but a Chief of Staff to persuade our un- 
ruly neighbors across the southern border of our 
country to kindly refrain, so far as is consistent 
with the eternal principles of liberty, from shoot- 
ing American citizens to death across the line. The 
Religion of Valor commands Germans to live dan- 
gerously. The Religion of Avoidance urges Texans 
to die complacently. 

We have seen, with eyes big with horror, how the 
Religion of Valor put into practice has turned Eu- 
rope into a shambles. The teachings of Treitschke 
and Bernhardi proved to be seed whose harvest was 
death and desolation. In spite of our temperamental 
egotism, we Americans, .if we are honest with our- 
selves, must admit that a year ago the most highly 



252 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

civilized part of the globe was the continent of Eu- 
rope, if civilization consists in the development of 
art, science, commerce, culture in the best sense of 
the word, and all the other activities of man that 
spring from his highest aspirations. But a Euro- 
pean nation, boasting of its devotion to art, science, 
commerce and culture, had for more than a genera- 
tion made a Keligion of Valor and had bowed down 
to the idols of Militarism. The outcome of Ger- 
many's substitution of Corsica for Galilee has been 
the overthrow of European civilization, the substitu- 
tion of war for peace over a whole blood-reddened 
continent, the turning of a world that was a garden 
into a graveyard. An idea evil in its conception and 
brutal in its manifestations has turned back the 
hands of time and changed the youth of Europe from 
men who should make the future glorious into mur- 
derous, burrowing animals, killing each other to the 
end that the Religion of Valor may take a greater 
toll of human lives than any pagan cult has ever 
demanded from its devotees. 

As for us Americans, let us not deceive ourselves. 
We are worshiping idols as false and treacherous 
and fond of blood as those to which the German 
Militarists have been paying homage for the last 
forty years. The Religion of Avoidance bids fair 
in the end to demand of mankind as gory a sacri- 
fice as has the Religion of Valor. Its high priests 



VALOR VERSUS AVOIDANCE 253 

and professors preach not only the doctrine of non- 
resistance to aggression but of blind indifference to 
existing perils. As a cult it defends itself by point- 
ing to its good intentions, about which as a pave- 
ment there has always clung a sulphurous odor. Its 
creed is attractive but misleading. Its basic tenets 
assert that war is savage, illogical and unnecessary 
and that the time has come for mankind to free it- 
self from its curse. The appeal made by the Re- 
ligion of Avoidance to the mind of the average peace- 
loving American is strong and real, but his response 
thereto does more credit to his heart than to his head. 
He should rise to a realization of the fact that he is 
a citizen of a world power at a time when war, far 
from being obsolete, is making the most hideous 
demonstration of its vitality as an institution that 
it has ever exhibited. 

If the leading American advocate of the Religion 
of Avoidance had displayed perfect consistency in 
the practical application of his cult to the foreign 
affairs of our government, the dangers that threaten 
us from beyond our borders might be less ominous 
than they appear to be at present. But what can 
be said of a Mexican policy, for example, that con- 
sists at one time of armed aggression and the cap- 
ture of a Mexican port and at another of public 
denial on the part of the Administration that this 
country has any obligations connected with the dis- 



254 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

orders across our Southern borders ? When Pontius 
Pilate theatrically washed his hands before the mul- 
titude to testify to his innocence in connection with 
the crucifixion of the Nazarene did he establish that 
innocence to the judgment of posterity? 

There is a golden mean between the Religion of 
Valor upon the one hand and the Religion of Avoid- 
ance upon the other upon which every clear-minded, 
open-eyed, patriotic American should base his atti- 
tude toward our national problems as they relate to 
war. It is inconceivable that the hasheesh of Mili- 
tarism can ever poison the minds of the people of 
this country. The unfortunate German devotees of 
the Religion of Valor stir the pity rather than the 
envy of Americans. World dominion, foreign con- 
quest, martial glory hold no allurements for us — are, 
in fact, repellent to our habitual modes of thought. 
On the other hand, the Religion of Avoidance, a 
form, as has been said, of sleeping sickness, cannot 
make a deep or permanent impression upon a people 
that is far from being fundamentally cowardly or 
degenerate. As a nation we have always been in- 
clined to mind our own business, but that fact did 
not prevent Dewey from destroying a Spanish fleet 
in the harbor of Manila with the warm approval of 
all his countrymen. The American people have not 
changed radically of late, even under the influence 
of office-holding doctrinaires and phrase-mongers 



VALOR VERSUS AVOIDAKCE 255 

wlio seized upon the most inopportune moment in 
the history of the race to preach the inherent superi- 
ority of pruning-hooks to swords. Since the founda- 
tion of our nation, rendered possible by a long and 
bitter war, we have been, from one point of view, at 
least, a fighting people, l^o generation of Ameri- 
cans since the days of Washington has lived and 
died without facing the ordeal of either a foreign 
or a civil war. 

Our martial experiences in the past have not 
tended in the slightest degree to arouse in us a 
fondness for militarism. But our wars have added 
materially to our national fund of self-respect. That 
we are as a people willing that that fund should be 
wiped out by the insidious influence of the compara- 
tively new Religion of Avoidance is unbelievable. 
This unmanly cult, in control by an unhappy 
chance of the reins of American government at a 
great world crisis, succeeded in preventing us from 
fulfilling our sacred obligations to violated Belgium, 
but is it too optimistic to assert that the supineness 
displayed by our government in that instance can 
never, with the consent of an aroused and enlight- 
ened people, be repeated? 

Between the strength that tempts to conquest and 
the weakness that must sacrifice honor there is a rea- 
sonable and practical compromise toward which the 
United States must turn if the lofty mission that 



256 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

fate is forcing upon this nation of freemen is to 
be worthily fulfilled. The Religion of Valor leads 
to blood and downfall. The Religion of Avoidance 
leads to blood and disgrace. Surely in the heroic 
and uplifting past of our nation we can find a creed 
applicable to our present needs that shall protect us 
as a people from the necessity to worship either the 
God of Brutality or the God of Impotence. 



CHAPTER XVI 



THE ONLY HOPE FOR PEACE 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE ONLY HOPE FOR PEACE 

As the Tvar of wars gradually demonstrated the 
fact that, contrary to the avowed opinion of many 
eminent experts in military matters, a conflict in- 
volving a large number of nations would not be 
necessarily of short duration, the thoughtful men 
and women of neutral powers became increasingly 
interested in projects for restraining, or, perhaps, 
putting an end forever to the activities of the god 
Mars. Old and new "sure cures" for war were sug- 
gested and recommended in a world aroused from its 
customary apathy regarding seemingly unsolvable 
problems by the unspeakable horrors presented to the 
eyes of an outraged race by the blood-stained conti- 
nent of Europe. Peace societies increased their ef- 
forts to spread their propaganda, religious sects of 
countless varieties joined in the crusade against war, 
statesmen and politicians advocated either increased 
armaments or universal disarmament as the best 
method for avoiding international hostilities in the 
future, pacificists predicted the imminent coming of 

259 



260 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

the millenniuin and fire-eaters contended that the 
only remedy for war was more war. There had 
been those among the writers and lecturers of recent 
times who had asserted that a great European war 
could not be fought without the consent of the lead- 
ing money-lenders of the world. They had claimed 
that capital was opposed to war and that, therefore, 
Armageddon was merely an evil dream that would 
never come true. There had been others of the lit- 
erary and oratorical professions who had argued that 
as Socialism, a growing force in the Old World, was 
antagonistic to war the projects of the militarists of 
the twentieth century must come to naught. But 
as the war of wars progressed it was seen that no 
financial obstacles stood in the way of its colossal 
activities, and as for the European Socialists they 
had shouldered their gims at the outbreak of hostili- 
ties and had joined their respective colors. 

All that had been said against war in the past had 
been shown to be true in a manner and on a scale 
more impressive than ever heretofore. "War is 
wickedness," Plutarch had said, "war is devilish" 
according to Luther, "war is an illustrious crime," 
pronounced Isidore of Pelusium. Sherman called 
it "Hell," Gibbon "robbery," Wellington "detest- 
able," Lactantius "murder," Bentham "misery," 
John Hay "futile." But here it was again, devastat- 
ing half the earth with a thoroughgoing diabolism 



THE ONLY HOPE FOR PEACE 261 

that made the great wars of the past look like insig- 
nificant skirmishes fought by incompetent and inade- 
quately-armed contestants. Every safeguard that 
the ingenuity of man had raised against the greatest 
of all human curses had proved to be inadequate at 
the world's most fateful crisis and the race at large 
gazed gloomily into the future, hoping against hope 
that some yet untried method for checking man's in- 
humanity to man might presently be discovered. 

It came eventually to this, that, to the minds of 
the thoughtful, one significant fact presented itself 
for consideration with an insistence that it had never 
before displayed. It could not be denied that from 
time immemorial the destinies of the race had been 
determined by the inclinations of the masculine part 
thereof. Races, peoples, nations, states had been 
governed and controlled by men, and by men only. 
And what had they done to civilization ? The pic- 
ture that the earth presented to the onlooking gods 
in the year 1915 brought the male sex under indict- 
ment for wholesale murder. How could men dodge 
the responsibility for the condition of savagery that 
prevailed at that time over a large part of the globe ? 
History has been made, as it has been written, al- 
most exclusively by men. As for the cataclysm that 
had befallen the race in 1914, it had been precipi- 
tated wholly by masculine agencies, and the responsi- 
bility for the greatest crime in the career of human- 



262 THE GAME OF EMPIKES 

ity rested upon man alone. Eor countless ages the 
so-called stronger sex had dominated the world — to 
the world's undoing. 

A woman doctor of Copenhagen, Erau Estrid 
Hein, was widely quoted in January, 1915, to the 
following effect: "In my capacity as a woman, I 
must say that I always have had a sort of distrust 
of society as organized by men. This distrust has 
grown with the war and I feel that if the women of 
Europe had only had more to say in the governing 
of their countries this terrible slaughter of soldiers 
and civilians would have been avoided. We women 
may have our faults, yet it is our instinctive impulse 
to preserve our children from the cruelties and hor- 
rors of the battlefield. As a doctor, as a mother and 
as a woman I am beginning to put the value of indi- 
vidual life before that of this terrible campaign," 

The restraint and conservatism of these suggestive 
words add to their effectiveness and render them 
worthy of earnest consideration. Is there not good 
reason to admit that Frau Estrid Hein's distrust of 
society as organized by men is well-founded, and 
that to-day, more than ever heretofore, the failure 
of the male sex to make of a plastic world what civili- 
zation had striven vainly to produce emphasizes the 
necessity for the introduction, if possible, of a new 
and elevating influence into human affairs ? 

It does not require much imagination to hear the 



THE ONLY HOPE FOE PEACE 263 

clamor of protest that is sure to be raised by anti- 
suffragists, and other reactionaries, when the above 
proposition is laid before them. The civil war that 
the militant suffragists of England recently inaugu- 
rated will be cited to prove that woman, as well as 
man, is a fighting animal. But the truth of the 
matter is simply this, that any intelligent animal 
can be taught to perform tricks for which nature has 
not designed it. An elephant playing cards with its 
trunk gives an exhibition of cleverness that is dis- 
tinctly startling, but it does not demonstrate the fit- 
ness of elephants in the mass to amuse themselves 
with bridge or poker. That women are qualified to 
wage war, or as a sex are disposed to encourage or 
condone it, is a contention that cannot be established. 
That they possess naturally more physical courage 
than men scientists have asserted, but that they are 
on the whole bitterly opposed to the human slaugh- 
ter that war demands is an imdeniable fact. 

In a former chapter it was shown that the war 
of wars was rendered inevitable by the survival in 
Europe of hereditary autocracy. Democracy is es- 
sentially antagonistic to war and it is fair to assume 
that war will become permanently obsolete only 
when the peoples of all countries possess the power 
to decide in all cases the issue of war or peace. It 
has become constantly more apparent that with 
the progress of democracy in the world the influence 



264 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

of women in public affairs has increased. The femi- 
nist movement is merely one feature of the slow but 
resistless drift of mankind toward universal democ- 
racy. That this drift will be amazingly accelerated 
by the sequel to the war of wars the history of the 
last few centuries abundantly proves. Autocracy, 
an atavistic survival, man's vermiform appendix, is 
being cut out of the body politic by the bloodiest 
surgical operation the race has ever been forced to 
undergo. The operation may be only partially suc- 
cessful at this period, but the "divine right" of kings 
to indulge at their pleasure in human butchery has 
been exercised — unless, as pessimists assert, man- 
kind is beyond all saving — for the last time. If at 
the conclusion of the war of wars democratic influ- 
ences fail to make another such world tragedy not 
easily precipitated, the lie will be given to every 
generalization that the records of man's past appear 
to establish. 

That democracy exclusively dominated by men, 
however, could put an end to war is open to ques- 
tion. Frau Estrid Hein's distrust of a society wholly 
masculine in its organization is more than justified 
by the fact that even the male Socialists of Europe 
rushed to war in 1914 with inconsistent fervor and 
without a protest against a mandate of autocracy that 
apparently aroused their patriotism while it chloro- 
formed their altruism. If, then, democracy is to put 



THE ONLY HOPE FOE PEACE 265 

an end to war it can only achieve this result by and 
through the influence and assistance of women. That 
the immediate future promises to find, the growing 
power of women in the state sufficiently strong to 
make this present war of wars the last great con- 
flict that the nations are to wage is far from probable. 
The time has not yet come when the sex that is com- 
posed almost wholly of pacificists can do much to 
change the belligerent tendencies of the world's great 
powers. But in so far as women have as yet gained 
political prerogatives they have used them, on the 
whole, in behalf of the higher aspirations of the 
race, including the movements that make for inter- 
national peace. 

A curious and suggestive contrast was presented 
to the eyes of the world by the varied tragedies that 
afflicted Europe in the month of January, 1915. 
Vast armies were confronting each other, engaged 
day and night in the grim, savage work of human 
slaughter. But in Italy, to which neutral country 
had come the devastating and death-dealing horror 
of an appalling earthquake, the mobilized troops, 
awaiting the call to a foreign war, had been trans- 
formed suddenly from warriors into philanthropists, 
devoting their skill, discipline, and enthusiasm to 
the saving rather than the taking of human life. The 
dynamics of military efficiency were turned into 
channels of mercy instead of destruction and a great 



266 THE GAME OF EMPIKES 

catastrophe for which only nature was responsible 
brought to view at least one European army that was 
exerting its power as a skilled organization not to 
increase the miseries of the race but, so far as was 
within its power, to minimize them. Side by side 
with the women of the Red Cross Society, the pro- 
fessional soldiers of Italy toiled and suffered to re- 
lieve the agonies that one of the most awful of 
modern seismic horrors had inflicted upon its vic- 
tims. 

Trained men and trained women striving together 
to alleviate the afflictions that befall the race ! There 
seemed to be an allegory in the picture thus pre- 
sented, a promise for the future, perhaps remote, 
that threw a ray of light into the gloom that had so 
long overhung a war-blackened world. It suggested 
the possibility that eventually there may come a uni- 
fication upon earth to the end that what are called 
the weaker and the stronger sex may combine their 
energies to reduce, by every method possible to man- 
kind, the aggregate of human suffering. To pre- 
vent the death and destruction that come from seis- 
mic convulsions is beyond the power of the race, but 
is it not possible that men and women working to- 
gether toward one much-to-be-desired end could ren- 
der the man-made curse of war forever obsolete ? 

There are practically only two experiments left 
that mankind has not yet tried in the effort to elimi- 



THE OXLY HOPE FOR PEACE 267 

nate, or reduce to a minimum, the pernicious activi- 
ties of recurrent warfare. The one consists in the 
establishment of an armed international police force 
that should make unjustifiable wars impossible. The 
other lies in giving to one half the race, and that the 
peace-loving half, the political prerogatives that have 
hitherto been exercised by the male sex alone. It 
seems probable that the efficacy of an international 
police force will be tested before the last possible 
obstacle to the recurrence of internationl wars, 
namely, the political power of women, is called into 
play in behalf of peace. But the formation of an 
international supreme court possessing the power to 
enforce its decisions is a project confronted by great 
difficulties and there is room for doubt that, if its 
decrees were made and executed by men only, the 
final outcome could possibly be the elimination of 
international wars from the world's activities. That 
such an experiment is well worth trying no lover of 
peace will deny, but that it would be a thorough, or 
even a partial, success in its efforts to overcome the 
inherent belligerency of men is open to question. 

The one great hope of a blood-stained earth lies 
with that half of the race that has but recently begim 
to make its influence felt in the affairs that influence 
the political destinies of nations. Woman has a 
mission in the future grander even than the dreams 
that inspired the first emancipators of her sex. She 



268 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

has reason to look forward to the time when her 
power in the modem state will be equal to that of 
men and the opportunity will be given to her to use 
that power in the interest of universal peace. And 
unless peace, peimanent peace, shall eventually come 
to mankind it will remain forever foolishness for 
the race to prate of civilization and progress and the 
possibility of the millennium. We men speak affec- 
tionately of our plant as Mother Earth and from time 
immemorial we have stained her bosom with human 
blood. We, her sons, have comported ourselves 
throughout all the ages as brutes. May it not be 
that the time is at hand when Earth's daughters shall 
lead their brothers out of the jungle in which war 
prevails to the smiling gardens where a bleeding 
race shall find the blessings of peace and good will 
to men? 



CHAPTER XVII 



ISOLATION AND ITS PERILS 



CHAPTER XVII 

ISOLATION AND ITS PERILS 

The so-called progressive nations of the world are, 
and always have been, land-grabbers. A people that 
has no craving for territorial expansion has been 
looked upon, throughout the ages, with more or less 
contempt by its more aggressive competitors, who 
have been inspired by the conviction that in the ac- 
quisition of land, and ever more land, lies the high- 
way to a place among the so-called world powers, the 
great desideratum of every ambitious race. There 
is no longer a furthest West, nor East, a furthest 
North, a furthest South. Our little planet has been 
surveyed and measured, and upon the walls of the 
world's chancelleries hang maps upon which the most 
desirable places in the sun are marked in red ink. 
]^o modern nation is deceived, as were the old Ro- 
mans, by the belief that Terminus, the god of the 
boundaries, plants his stones with a view to perma- 
nency. The great game for which earth is the table, 
and whose dice are human bones, is being played 
to-day with even more fervor than in former ages 

271 



272 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

for the reason that geographical exploration has 
placed a final limit upon the size of the stakes. The 
time has gone by when a loser at the great interna- 
tional gambling table could seize from one side com- 
pensation for what he had parted with upon the 
other. The earth offers to mankind a given number 
of square miles of land and the militant powers of 
the world to-day are struggling with each other, with 
a detailed knowledge of the stakes involved not pos- 
sessed by their predecessors, for territorial prizes 
that grow more valuable with every succeeding gen- 
eration. For the land upon our little planet does 
not increase in extent, while the population of the 
globe is constantly in a state of growth. 

The great obstacle that lies in the pathway toward 
peace on earth, a peace that, as has been said, seems 
to be attainable only through the employment of an 
international police force or through the soothing in- 
fluence of woman upon public affairs, or through _ 
both combined, is to be found in this insatiable pas- 
sion for territorial aggrandizement upon the part of 
the ascendant peoples of the earth. During the past 
half century the amount of land-grabbing done by 
the leading powers of the world illustrates the diffi- 
culty that the pacificist finds, and must continue to 
find, in his endeavors to persuade the dominant na- 
tions of the earth that war should be abolished. 
Within that period France has added to her colonial 



ISOLATION AND ITS PERILS 273 

possessions nearly 3,000,000 square miles, with a 
population of 60,000,000 people. England, during 
the same period, has acquired 3,200,000 square 
miles and 95,000,000 people. North of the neutral- 
ity line drawn by the English-Russian treaty of 1907 
Russia has obtained vast territories in Asia. 
Within the last twenty years Japan has practically 
doubled her possessions. German expansion in a 
comparatively short period preceding the war of 
wars resulted in the acquisition of 1,100,000 square 
miles of land, with a population of 13,000,000 peo- 
ple. Even little Belgium put out her hand not long 
ago and seized 900,000 square miles, with 9,000,000 
of population, in Africa. 

Now what have we peaceable, contented and un- 
ambitious Americans been doing in the way of land- 
grabbing during the last half century ? Can it be 
possible"" that we have inherited from our forefa- 
thers, who subdued and overran a continent, the 
same passion for territorial acquisition that we so 
loudly deprecate when it is manifested by the buc- 
caneering powers of the Old World? And if that 
passion is a heritage of ours, does it not "follow as 
the night the day" that we must eventually pay the 
price for its satisfaction that fate eventually de- 
mands of every nation whose colonial expansion 
awakens the jealousy of rival powers? Let us look 
for a moment at the startling figures that confront 



274 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

us when we investigate the territorial expansion in 
which we have indulged during the last two decades. 

During our great land-grabbing year of 1898 we 
took possession of the Hawaiian Islands, 6,449 
square miles; of Porto Rico, 3,435 square miles; of 
Guam, 210 square miles; and of the Philippine 
Islands, 114,958 square miles. In the following 
year we added 77 square miles to our holdings by 
the acquisition of Samoa and in 1904 we made our 
great waterway a possibility by obtaining the Pan- 
ama Canal Zone, 436 square miles in extent. There 
are Americans who are inclined to protest to a suspi- 
cious and cynical world that our recent land-grab- 
bing was forced upon us by the malicious chances of 
war, that we reluctantly accepted obligations that we 
had no desire to assume, through motives of the pur- 
est and most altruistic kind ; and that, as we proved 
by our treatment of Cuba, the permanency of our 
expansion in any direction is always dependent upon 
the length of time it may take us to teach a tempo- 
rarily dependent people how to govern themselves. 

That the land-hungry nations of the world now 
at war with each other cherish doubt of our good 
intentions, refuse to believe that there is at least one 
great power in the world that is not inspired by 
greed for increased territory, is not to be wondered 
at. Their skepticism is a fact that this nation must 
accept as unalterable, despite the injustice it may do 



ISOLATION AND ITS PERILS 275 

to us as a people, and in its acceptance we must real- 
ize and face the perils that confront us through the 
unwillingness of the other powers of the world to 
believe that the United States possesses a moral 
grandeur that they themselves lack, and that is some- 
thing new in the history of the human race. Let us 
as a nation be, if possible, a Dr. Jekyll, but let us 
not forget that the rest of the world looks upon us 
as a Mr. Hyde. 

"There is no thought of conquest," said Senator 
Lodge, of Massachusetts, to his fellow Senators early 
in the year 1915, "in the hearts of the American 
people. We wish for nothing but peace at home and 
abroad. Every reflecting man must favor general 
disarmament or a general reduction of armaments, 
but there is no such incitement to war possible as 
for a rich and prosperous nation, whether great or 
small, to disarm alone and remain unarmed in the 
midst of an armed world. We do not want war with 
any nation or any people, and the way to avoid war 
is not to invite it. Unarmed, unready, undefended, 
we offer a standing invitation to aggression and at- 
tack, and the idea, still popular or used for purposes 
of oratory by some people, that we can meet all dan- 
gers by springing to arms when the moment comes 
is a dream so wild that it would be grotesque if it 
were not tragic." 

There is no hysteria in the words quoted above. 



276 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

They are the calm, statesmanlike presentment of the 
most important issue now before the American peo- 
ple by a publicist who is equipped by intellect, ex- 
perience and first-hand information to voice effec- 
tively a warning that a blindly optimistic nation 
should heed. Senator Lodge is in accord with Presi- 
dent Wilson in the conviction that we Americans 
earnestly desire the continued maintenance of peace. 
^Nevertheless the fact remains that the United States 
is to-day a great world power, in theory, without 
the means, if the need should arise, of giving prac- 
tical demonstration of its ability to maintain the 
international prominence that has been thrust upon 
us in recent years. Furthermore we are inclined to 
indulge as a nation in a tendency to exhibit a swag- 
gering attitude to a belligerent world the while we 
carry several irritating chips upon our shoulders. 
The Philippines, Alaska, Hawaii, Porto Rico and 
the Canal Zone, acquired by the United States by 
purchase or by war, are among the earth's desirable 
places in the sun that might conceivably arouse the 
cupidity of acquisitive powers who have no real lik- 
ing for the American people, for our form of govern- 
ment or for the transcendentalism upon which we 
claim to base our foreign policy. And not one of 
our outlying possessions is adequately protected from 
offensive operations that, if they ever come, are sure 
to come suddenly. 



ISOLATION AND ITS PEKILS 277 

The incontrovertible fact that the American peo- 
ple, as a whole, is antagonistic to war has practically 
nothing to do with the dire possibilities that our 
national future presents to the gaze of the student 
of history. "The forces which determine the actions 
of empires and great nations are deep hidden and 
not easily affected by words or even by feelings of 
hostility or friendship. They lie beyond the wishes 
or intentions of the individuals composing those na- 
tions. They may even be contrary to those wishes 
and those intentions." Thus wrote the late Profes- 
sor Cramb, and he went on to say: "Individual 
friendship or hate has a very fugitive and uncertain 
influence on war and peace; and the good or evil 
will, even of great numbers of private persons, has 
little effect on the ultimate motives that control 
the actions of states." 

The United States, conscientiously obeying the be- 
hests of the nation's founders, has avoided "entan- 
gling alliances." By following this eminently wise 
course, however, we have been forced to pay a high 
price for independence in the realm of international 
affairs. Among the great powers of the world the 
United States possesses not a single friend. Eng- 
land long boasted of her "splendid isolation," but 
when the war of wars overthrew the equilibrium of 
the world the powerful allies that have joined hands 
with her in recent years served to save her empire 



278 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

from dismemberment. Isolation for even the great- 
est of powers may be "splendid," but in this age of 
national interdependence it carries with it the peril 
of annihilation. 

Let us not blind our eyes to an unwelcome truth ! 
If a foreign war from any source should be forced 
upon the United States there is no power beyond our 
own borders to which we could turn for assistance or 
even for sympathy. Our general unpopularity as a 
nation was demonstrated at the time of our war with 
Spain. The success that came to our arms in that 
conflict added to the world-wide dislike felt for us as 
a people, the while it brought to us territorial ac- 
quisitions that vastly increase the danger that threat- 
ens us from foreign aggression. Among our national 
treasures we are supposed to possess certain "historic 
friendships" — with France, for example, or with 
Russia or Japan — but sentiment counts for nothing 
when the game of empires is being played and hu- 
man bones are rattling in the dice-box. Further- 
more our maintenance of strict neutrality since the 
outbreak of the war of wars has done nothing to de- 
crease our unpopularity in any direction. Whereso- 
ever our present sympathies may lie as a people will 
have no bearing upon the international complica- 
tions that seem to lie in wait for us in the future. 

There are two permanent obstacles that stand in 
the way of our efforts as a nation to put ourselves 



ISOLATION AND ITS PEKILS 279 

in a position to confront the perils that may pres- 
ently menace us, the one theoretical, the other prac- 
tical. Many of our legislators cherish the belief 
that in increasing our armaments we would invite 
war, a proposition that can muster enough arguments 
in its support to make it seemingly plausible. But 
the most disastrous effect upon all endeavors to place 
the United States and our dependencies in a condi- 
tion of safety from aggression lies in the persistent 
tendency of Congress to adopt halfway measures. 
We provide our harbors with guns but not with the 
men needed to make them effective. Congress, in so 
far as national defense is concerned, is forever com- 
promising, economizing, rendering abortive the well- 
considered plans of military and naval experts. 
Even under the influence of a war scare, widespread 
and, under existing world conditions, well-founded, 
our legislators hesitate to take the only steps that 
can change our present condition of weakness and 
unpreparedness for war into a state of adequate de- 
fense. Under the pressure of a popular demand 
something will be done, of course, to render the posi- 
tion of this country somewhat more secure than it 
has been of late, but that our lawmakers will solve 
the problem of national defense in a broad and thor- 
oughly effective way is, unless all precedents are re- 
versed, not to be expected. 

The voice of the alarmist is never music to the 



280 THE GAME OF EMPIKES 

ears of men wrapped up in their own personal af- 
fairs. They have heard the cry of "Wolf!" when 
there was no wolf so often that they have grown 
indifferent to warnings that have in them nothing 
novel. But to-day there has come a new note into 
the voices of those enlightened and foresighted 
Americans who are crying aloud to the nation to 
arouse itself to the perils of the future, a note re- 
sulting from the tragedy that is being enacted upon 
the European stage. Friendless among the nations 
of the world, the United States is at present without 
the means to defend her borders, her harbors, her 
coast lines or her dependencies if war should come, 
as it came to half the world last summer, suddenly 
and without the warnings that usually precede hos- 
tilities between nations. Is it not the duty of every 
American citizen to use all the influence he can 
bring to bear upon our legislators to the end that 
the measures now being devised to render our posi- 
tion as a nation less insecure in a warring world 
shall not be marred by the blighting effects of con- 
servatism, compromises and carelessness? Our 
peril is not imaginary — our defenses must be real! 



CHAPTER XVin 



THE STONE OF SISYPHUS 



CHAPTEE XVIII 



THE STONE OF SISYPHUS 



The greatest of all world conflicts, begun in the 
summer of 1914 and still at its height as the weary, 
heart-breaking months of the following winter 
dragged on toward what promised to be the bloodiest 
springtime the earth had known, had wiped the 
cobwebs out of the sky and in many different ways 
had clarified the thoughts of men. The most colos- 
sal struggle on record, it had proved itself to be also 
the most iconoclastic. Countless hopes, beliefs, theo- 
ries and aspirations that the optimistic had cherished 
and promulgated had been destroyed by what was 
not only the most stupendous but the most cruel of 
all the innumerable combats waged by men against 
men. Among the delusions in which the race had 
indulged that came to an end in the year of slaugh- 
ter 1915 was the unfounded idea that there was, or 
might be, such a thing as so-called "civilized war- 
fare." An American Indian, with the scalps of his 
enemies hanging from his belt, would have been 
shocked at certain details of the human butchery in 

283 



284 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

which the enlightened peoples of Europe had been 
engaged for many months. Every rule by which 
men in recent times of peace had sought to minimize 
the horrors of future wars had been broken during 
the progress of a conflict that had sprung most ap- 
propriately from seed sown by an assassin. 

The dreadful suspicion, amounting almost to con- 
viction, had come to the minds of men that what we 
have been wont to call civilization is really non- 
existent, a chimera that fades away when the primi- 
tive passions of a self-deceived race defiantly assert 
themselves. A skulking savage plunging a tomahawk 
through the head of a woman pioneer in the wilds 
of America presents a picture of barbarity that chills 
the blood, but is it more horrifying than the sight 
of a highly-trained and presumably intellectual air- 
man dropping bombs upon non-combatants in unfor- 
tified towns ? In fact, as between the untutored In- 
dian and the educated aviator, the former could put 
up the better defense for his method of waging war. 
The savage has not enjoyed the alleged advantages 
that a technical school is supposed to furnish to its 
pupils. 

Behold a most amazing inconsistency! In the 
twentieth century a nation proclaims its fitness to 
dominate the world and to confer upon the race a 
higher civilization and culture than have yet pre- 
vailed upon earth. As proof of its qualifications for 



THE STONE OF SISYPHUS 285 

this seemingly altruistic endeavor it strives to terrify 
its opponents by adding, through means provided by 
the advance of science, new and appalling horrors to 
war. The theory underlying this apparent contra- 
diction between motives and methods seems to be 
that a people possessing sufficient efficiency to multi- 
ply the savageries of war is necessarily equipped to 
confer upon mankind an increased number of the 
blessings of peace. 

But ours is, as a whole, a rather stubborn and con- 
servative world. Mankind at large seems disinclined 
to be terrorized into accepting a yoke that, though it 
might add to the general efficiency of the race, would 
destroy of necessity the ideals that underlie the indi- 
vidualistic attitude toward existence. The align- 
ment of the various powers taking part in the war of 
wars presented various inconsistencies and contra- 
dictions, but in the last analysis, as the great strug- 
gle developed, it was seen that the race had been 
called upon to choose, through the arbitrament of 
war, between two radically antagonistic points of 
view regarding the state itself and the attitude of the 
individual citizen thereto. The idea permeating the 
expression Deutschland ilher alles was merely an ap- 
plication to the world at large of a governmental 
theory and practice that minimizes the significance 
of the governed to exaggerate the importance of the 
government. Under the workings of this theory gov- 



286 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

ermnent becomes a Juggernaut beneath the wheels 
of which men, women and children joyfully extermi- 
nate themselves to the greater glory of a soulless ma- 
chine. 

Air, land and water vibrated with the explosions 
of ingenious weapons that had been devised to elimi- 
nate from a conquered world poetry, pity and per- 
sonality, to establish on a planet dominated by the 
first all-conquering race in history the reign of a 
dull, lifeless, unimaginative system that should 
blight, as it had blighted in Germany, the finest as- 
pirations of all who rendered it obedience. And the 
war that was fought to put this unbearable collar 
upon the neck of the race at large was waged with a 
pitiless indifference to the rules of what had once 
been somewhat absurdly called civilized warfare that 
helped to defeat the very object for which its cruel 
wantonness had been brought into activity. For the 
neutral nations of the earth felt instinctively that, as 
a man is known by the company he keeps, so, in 
some degree, can a nation's cause be judged by the 
weapons it uses and the victims it slays. 

The nation that had dreamed and planned and 
fought to the end that it might put a girdle of effi- 
ciency and culture around the world made no secret 
of its belief that there is in reality no such thing as 
civilized warfare. Both by word and deed it demon- 
strated its conviction that war in the twentieth cen- 



THE STONE OF SISYPHUS 287 

tury differs from war in former times not in being 
less cruel but in displaying ingenious and novel 
ways for making cruelty a more effective ally than 
of old to military endeavor. Science had been called 
into play to utilize terror as a weapon whose re- 
sources former ages, black as they are with the crimes 
of soldiery, had not employed in their entirety. 

"The German War Book," the manual of the 
usages of war on land issued by the General Staff 
of the German Army, is an official and authoritative 
publication that is unpleasantly enlightening in con- 
nection with the above assertions. "International 
law," says this appalling war-manual, "is in no way 
opposed to the exploitation of crimes of third parties, 
assassination, incendiarism, robbery, and the like, to 
the prejudice of the enemy. The ugly and immoral 
aspect of such methods cannot affect the recognition 
of their lawfulness." "Should peaceful inhabitants 
of an invaded country be exposed to the fire of their 
own troops ?" "Yes," is the uncompromising an- 
swer. "It may be indispensable, but its main justi- 
fication is that it is 'successful.' " "Should women 
and children and the old and feeble be allowed to 
depart before a bombardment begins ?" is a question 
put by the manual, and its compilers make answer 
as follows: "On the contrary their presence is 
greatly to be desired. It makes the bombardment all 
the more effective." 



288 THE GAME OE EMPIRES 

It is difficult for Americans, despite the hideous 
details that have been made public regarding the 
horrors of the war now being waged in Europe, to 
grasp the full significance of the theory and practice 
that have combined to make of German Militarism 
what it has shown itself to be. The plea that the 
more terrifying a war is rendered the shorter will be 
its duration is not sufficiently powerful to impress a 
nation that had cherished the conviction, now shown 
to be baseless, that the recent efforts of peace con- 
ferences and Hague tribunals to minimize the hor- 
rors of warfare had been of some value. The reve- 
lation has been made to a shocked and disappointed 
world that when the so-called most civilized powers 
on earth to-day make their appeal to the sword the 
progress that the race had seemingly won of late 
toward higher planes of thought and action disap- 
pears, and mankind indulges in an exhibition of bar- 
barity that makes the warfare of the past in com- 
parison approximately humane. 

Armageddon has thrust the millennium into cold 
storage for an indefinite period. The efforts of man- 
kind to minimize the evils that spring from poverty, 
disease and other afflictions that beset a world at 
peace have been rendered of secondary importance 
by the war of wars. The splendid struggles that are 
being waged against tuberculosis, against white slav- 
ery, against child labor, have been thrown out of 



THE STOITE OF SISYPHUS 289 

their rightful perspective of late through the sudden 
intrusion into the modern world of the ancient curse 
of war in a guise more horrifying and in scope more 
all-embracing than it has ever displayed since the 
first cave-men hacked at each other with stone-axes. 
It has come upon our modern world with new and 
appallingly destructive weapons, and brazenly, au- 
daciously it asserts that idealism is degeneracy and 
that might makes right. It has its priests, its preach- 
ers and its song-makers as well as its makers of war- 
manuals. The only sensitiveness to a feeling of 
shame that it displays lies in its denial that it is a 
curse and its insistence that, when thoroughly appre- 
ciated in all its effects, it is the greatest blessing 
vouchsafed to man. And an amazed and disheart- 
ened world must turn from various promising altru- 
istic activities to confront this challenge from civili- 
zation's most ancient and most persistent enemy, the 
expression upon the countenance of humanity resem- 
bling that which comes to the face of Sisyphus when, 
after great but futile labor, he finds the stone he had 
pushed to the top of the hill rolling unchecked again 
to the bottom. 



CHAPTER XIX 



THE RELIGION OF STEADFASTNESS 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE EELIGION OF STEADFASTNESS 

In his immortal epic, the "Divine Comedy/' 
Dante's most withering scorn is expressed for those 
lost souls who during their earthly existence were 
neither good nor bad. As Virgil guides his brother 
poet through the abode of the damned their ears are 
shocked by groans, outcries and shrieks of despair 
that come not from Hell but from a place of suffer- 
ing adjacent thereto. "Master," exclaims Dante to 
his guide, "what do I hear, and what is this crowd 
which seems so crushed by sorrow ?" To this Virgil 
makes answer: "This is the miserable fate of the 
sad souls of all those who have lived without blame 
and without praise. They are mingled with that 
dread chorus of angels who were neither faithful to 
God, nor rebellious, but who existed for themselves 
only. They have been banished from Heaven, be- 
cause they spoiled its beauty, and the depths of Hell 
would not receive them because the damned would 
gain some glory by their presence." 

In the brilliant preface to his novel, "The Fear 
293 



294 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

of Living," Henri Bordeaux, the noted French writer, 
says: "The fear of living means precisely this — to 
deserve neither blame nor praise. It is the constant 
all-prevailing desire for peace. It is the flight from 
responsibilities, struggles, risks and efforts. It is 
the careful avoidance of danger, fatigue, exaltation, 
passion, enthusiasm, sacrifice, every violent action, 
everything that disturbs and upsets. It is the re- 
fusal of life's claims upon our hearts, our sweat and 
our blood. In short, it is the pretense of living, 
while limiting life, while setting bounds to our des- 
tinies. It is that passive selfishness which would 
rather retrench its appetite than seek the food which 
it requires; the selfishness which is meanly content 
with a colorless, dull life, provided it is sure of 
meeting with no shocks, no difiiculties, no obstacles, 
like the traveler who will only journey along plains 
and on rubber tires." 

This fear of living, which, as Dante shows us, 
is not wholly a modem manifestation of cowardice, 
afflicts at times not merely individuals but entire na- 
tions. Into that suburb of Hell where dwell in tor- 
ment the souls of the colorless and insignificant, peo- 
ples and races have been thrust for their failure, 
when earthly opportunity was theirs, to do and dare. 
By succumbing to the fear of living a nation may be 
forced to undergo a punishment that is infinitely 
worse than total amiihilation. To serve neither God 



THE EELIGIOK OF STEADFASTNESS 295 

nor the Devil is to acquire the contempt of both 
saints and sinners, to occupy a position more unde- 
sirable than any other in highest Heaven or lowest 
Hell. 

Are the people of the United States, at the most 
exacting crisis in the world's history, under tempta- 
tion to surrender to that fear of living that arouses 
the contempt of both the powers of light and the 
powers of darkness? Our ancestors conquered a 
continent. Have we, the descendanta of men who 
dared to live strenuously and to die bravely, de- 
generated into a resemblance to that "dread chorus 
of angels who were neither faithful to God, nor re- 
bellious" ? Have we become a nation of shirkers, 
of compromisers, of opportunists, afraid to look the 
facts and obligations of life in the face, to defend 
with our heart's blood, if need be, what our fore- 
fathers won at a mighty sacrifice ? 

These are not impertinent nor untimely questions. 
Under the conditions that prevail upon earth to-day, 
conditions that cannot be radically changed for many 
years to come, each nation is forced to estimate the 
strength of its own soul, to question that soul regard- 
ing its fitness to meet the exigencies of the dark days 
that must of necessity follow the dark days now 
upon us. The material side of the problem that at 
present confronts every organized state in the world 
is of vast importance but it sinks into insignificance 



296 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

compared with the psychological. For out of this 
chaotic welter of international conflict must come a 
strange, new planet upon which only that people shall 
have high place whose collective soul has heen strong 
and unterrified in the days of strife and adversity. 
Are we Americans really only a nation of shop- 
keepers, worshiping exclusively the courtesan to 
whom Tolstoi gave the name of Commerce, or do we 
as a people possess a soul that can rise, when called 
upon hy the insistent voice of a destiny apparently 
manifest, to the complete fulfillment of our duty hoth 
to God and man ? The Religion of Valor we de- 
nounce and repudiate. The Religion of Avoidance, 
if we as a nation adopt it, would cast us into that 
purgatory where mourn forever the "sad souls of all 
those who have lived without praise and without 
blame." But there is a Religion of Steadfastness 
to which we Americans should pay the homage of 
devotion and, if need be, self-sacrifice. Its creed 
affirms, or better, reaffirms, the principles, beliefs 
and ideals whose influences have combined to make 
the history of our nation a record of which we may 
well be proud. It calls upon us at all times for a 
firmness that refuses to sacrifice honor for expedi- 
ency, for a foresightedness that shall provide the 
strength necessary for our salvation in the hour of 
peril, for an unswerving loyalty to the conviction that 
Right, however praiseworthy it may be in the ab- 



THE RELIGION" OF STEADFASTNESS 297 

stract, is of little potency in this still uncivilized 
world of ours unless it is backed by Migbt. The 
Religion of Steadfastness regards the American flag 
as a symbol sufficiently sacred to be always and every- 
where defended from insult. There is no hysteria, 
sentimentality, mock-heroism, about this cult to which 
we Americans should vow allegiance. It is founded 
upon elevating precedents, upon common sense, 
upon a permanent and lofty appeal to the soul of a 
people not as yet worthy of the contempt that Dante 
felt for those wretched deserters who were the de- 
spised of Hell as they had been of Earth. 

Swashbucklers ? Fire-eaters ? Alarmists ? Do we 
Americans who cherish the memory of our nation's 
past, who take pride in innumerable features of its 
present, and who look to see it fulfill the obligations 
of its future deserve the harsh names that are hurled 
at us by those of our fellow countrymen who imagine 
that they see in the powder flashes of Armageddon the 
herald gleams of the millennium? There are hun- 
dreds of thousands of men on the battlefronts of 
Europe to-day who hate war, who realize and con- 
demn its barbarity, its lack of logic, its fundamental 
inconsistency with the highest ideals of civilization, 
but who are fighting bravely because "a condition, not 
a theory" confronted them at a crisis when pacificism 
would have been supreme cowardice. 

It is possible for a man to be a pacificist at heart 



298 THE GAME OF EMPIEES 

but mentally and morally true to the obligations that 
beset him in a world in which, unfortunately, war 
has not as yet become obsolete. It comes down to 
this, that the Militarists of the race are still suf- 
ficiently powerful to bring about crises during which 
countless lovers of peace are forced to engage in 
active warfare. That such a condition of affairs 
is unreasonable and deplorable the war of wars has 
demonstrated. Realizing this, the neutrals on earth 
to-day are endeavoring to hit upon some project that 
shall render war in the future a calamity that can 
be localized or even wholly prevented. But if they 
fail — and there seems to be no present prospect that 
their endeavors in behalf of world-wide peace can be 
in the near future even approximately successful — 
what duty, immediate and pressing, is thrust upon 
the people of the United States, a people neither 
physically nor morally degenerate and still loyal at 
heart to ideals that in the past have demanded of 
them the sacrifices that war makes necessary ? 

Our duty is so plainly indicated by our present 
military and naval weakness and by the unpleasant 
possibilities that threaten us in the future that those 
Americans who deny its existence grow less influen- 
tial numerically, and less noisy in their protests 
against national defensive measures, as time goes on. 
We are not, we have never been, a nation addicted 
to impractical dreams or futile rainbow chasing. 



THE EELIGION OF STEADFASTNESS 299 

The genius of our people prefers, and rightfully so, 
to manifest itself through the media provided by 
peace rather than by war. But despite this praise- 
worthy predilection, it is not conceivable that a na- 
tion that won its independence by force of arms, 
that cut from its bosom the cancer of slavery by four 
years of bloody strife, that waged war to free Cuba 
from an obsolete despotism has become, by the stroke 
of anybody's pen, a people from whom the damned 
would gain some glory if Hell consented to receive 
them. 

Before the war of wars broke out in Europe with 
appalling suddenness in August, 1914, England had 
been repeatedly warned by her statesmen, military 
leaders, authors and poets that a rival nation was 
plotting and planning for the overthrow of the British 
Empire. These warnings fell upon ears stubbornly 
deaf to the voice of either the military expert or the 
inspired prophet. The tail of the British lion had 
been twisted so frequently in the past that that phleg- 
matic creature had grown indifferent to external an- 
noyances and menaces. Furthermore, had not Eng- 
land, despite many blunders and setbacks, enjoyed 
practically for centuries her own way on earth? 
That a crisis was imminent that should imperil not 
only her colonial possessions but the little island home 
from which she had so long ruled a large part of the 
globe seemed absurd and incredible to the average 



300 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

Englishman. His personal affairs were to him last 
July the most important factors in the universe. 
Where is he to-day and what is he doing ? If he has 
not laid down his life in battle, he is drilling to go to 
the front or, perhaps, fighting in a trench and wonder- 
ing vaguely if nature really cursed him with a lack 
of imagination. He has sho^^^l himself to be pos- 
sessed of heroic qualities but he is well aware now 
that he is not endowed mentally with anything re- 
sembling clairvoyant powers. 

What has happened of late to our English cousins 
is worthy of earnest consideration by us Americans, 
many of whom inherit strains of blood that carry 
with them a tendency toward both the faults and the 
virtues that the Britisher displays. We are optimis- 
tic, courageous and somewhat overbearing as a na- 
tion. We have a tendency to trust more to our good 
luck if war comes to us than to our preparedness for 
the ordeal. We are skeptical regarding, or indiffer- 
ent to, the evident hostility of other nations. Having 
faith, as have the English, in what appears to be 
manifest destiny, we underestimate the possibilities 
that might arise to render the fulfillment of that des- 
tiny impossible. That we possess, in abundance, as 
do the English, the raw material that can be molded 
into effective fighting power there can be no question. 
But it takes much more time at present than formerly 
to change the raw material of youth and brawn and 



THE EELIGION OF STEADFASTNESS 301 

pluck into the finished product of a trained and efii- 
cacious soldiery. As we have so recently seen, mod- 
ern wars may come like lightning out of a clear sky. 
Modern armies worthy of the name can only be made 
while we wait — and woe to us if we should ever be 
compelled to wait too long ! 

It is not the purpose of this book to mince words 
nor to give heed in advance to the possible criticisms 
to which it may be subjected. It has been written 
by a pacificist, if a pacificist is one who cherishes a 
detestation for war and longs for its complete and 
permanent abolition. If, on the other hand, a pa- 
cificist is one who believes that the time is at hand 
when the interests of universal peace could be ad- 
vanced by the turning of all American swords into 
pruning-hooks, or some equally useful tool, the writer 
is not entitled to the name. On the contrary, indeed, 
he believes that the greatest obstacle to the establish- 
ment in the near future of a condition of world-wide 
peace would be the continued inadequacy of the land 
and sea defenses of the United States. The war of 
wars has been most comprehensive in its iconoclasm 
and one of the images that it has smashed represented 
the untenable belief that an inoffensive and peaceable 
country is, because of its praiseworthy virtues, neces- 
sarily free from all danger of invasion. We Ameri- 
cans may as a nation put on the whole armor of 
righteousness but it will avail us nothing if, with our 



302 THE GAME OF EMPIRES 

armor, offensive and defensive weapons are not in- 
cluded. 

Let us as a people, friendless in a world of jealous 
and warlike powers, take to ourselves the words of the 
English poet Henley as a sacred hymn adapted to 
the use of a nation that has rejected the Religions 
both of Valor and Avoidance and finds its inspiration 
in the Religion of Steadfastness. 

"Out of the night that covers me, 
Black as the pit from pole to pole, 
I thank whatever gods may be 
For my unconquerable soul. 

In the fell clutch of circumstance 
I have not winced nor cried aloud. 
Under the bludgeonings of chance 
My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears 
Looms but the horror of the shade. 
And yet the menace of the years 
Finds and shall find me unafraid. 

It matters not how strait the gate, 
How charged with punishments the scroll, 
I am the master of my fate; 
I am the captain of my soul." 



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